I kinda wanna go outside

It's minorly , but it's awesome.



And while we're at it...

Don't lie down on this fundraiser...

It may seem an odd fundraiser, but that's only because it is.

But, anybody need a mattress?

Saturday night's all right

I told The Pater Familias that all I wanted for Christmas was for him to grow a mustache and soul patch like a Kentucky Colonel.  I'm thinking I'm not getting that, though.

• The Best of Baseball Reference's Sponsorship Comments - #8 is my favorite...I need something witty to sponsor my favorite player
  
• Rick Rosner - the interview is long (60 minutes) but it's amazingly well done...seriously moving interview with a perfect ending...
• Newser - I really like their news interface...great for quick glance news reading
• Reborn Coma Man's Words May Be Bogus - interesting, and I'm ashamed to think that I hadn't even considered this possibility
• Which Christmas Carol - TL and Calen, in particular, should check this one
• How Valid are TV Weather Forecasts? - research shows...about what I expected
• Minaret Ban Approved - proving that America isn't the only western, conservative nation
• AR Contest Winning Door - a sinusoidal wave door?...awesome
• Fishing Rods from Carrot Sticks - material science rocks
• My Life is Twilight - It's My Life is Average but with a different spin on crowdsourcing

Update: Zilch

I'm still rolling through Zilch.

Just earned award #114 of 120.

I know what some of the other awards are...

• second row - 13000, 14000, and 15000 total score - tough to get because you have to have a rockin' turn when you're already up above 9500
• third row - 10 losses in a row (I'll have that in two more games)...500 total games finished (I'm just over 200, so that'll take a while.)

But that one in the bottom right has me totally stumped.  It's called Amnesiac, and it's in the middle of a bunch of other game setup-related awards (checked awards, read the rules, etc).

Anybody have any idea what it takes to earn that one?

PS - I should have checked the internet for a list of zilch awards before asking.

The Hometown

Standard local news fluff story on NAHS



Nice editing and lineups here...



Have to have basketball



New Albany National Cemetery - final resting place of my maternal grandfather...the first guy to speak was my neighbor growing up



Trainspotting, here we come



N'Albany little league against Hamilton



A simulated flyover



World Hoop Day?



N'Albany's greatest jazz musician



Balloon launch with Harvest Homecoming



Harvest Homecoming entertainment



Harvest Homecoming parade



And N'Albany's most famous citizen

Thirty years

Jim Bullinger

I know almost nothing about Jim Bullinger.

I don't know where he went to college, where he grew up, how long he lasted in the majors.

Until I searched for and posted his baseball card above, I couldn't've told you whether he was right- or left-handed.

What I do know about Jim Bullinger can fit into a pretty short, poorly arranged paragraph:

He debuted in the majors for the Chicago Cubs in the summer of 1992 - sometime around the first week of June. He hit a home run on the first pitch of his first major league at-bat. He saved four games that week. And he really wasn't that good a pitcher.

Oh, and he's my favorite baseball player ever.

There's no complicated reason, no special connection between Mr Bullinger and me (the closest that I come to that is with this guy that I knew in high school) that leads to him being my favorite.

Instead, he's my favorite because I have a great memory of that first pitch home run.

I had graduated from high school a week before and headed out the next day to St Louis as one of four in a car.  The driver was my then girlfriend, now wife - The Girl.  The other passengers were ColdNorthGamer and Marilyn, a foreign exchange student who was staying with The Girl and her mother.

We didn't have any sort of crazy plans.  This wasn't going to be Spring Break Gone Wild.  This was just the four of us getting out of town for a quick trip to celebrate our completion of what we felt at the time was some kind of big hurdle - high school.

We'd visited with my cousin and aunt in St Louis.  We'd stayed at The Girl's grandmother's house.  We'd been up in the arch and seen the Mississippi River - a sight that warms my heart and moves me to awe every time that I lay eyes upon our Mother River.

And we'd gotten tickets for a baseball game, two games even, as the Cardinals were hosting the Cubs in a daytime doubleheader at Busch Stadium.

The tickets were good - first row of the upper deck, the kind of seats that you can either lean back and put your feet up or lean forward and watch the game through the railing.  I don't really remember how we got the tickets - somehow via The Girl's sister and brother in law.  We didn't pay for them.  That I do remember.  They ended up being gifts for the family and friends in town for a visit.

Gamer and I were in a fantasy baseball league that summer.  He was the commissioner, tallying up statistics by hand thanks to a subscription to either USA Today or some print baseball weekly.  The league was made up entirely of friends with whom we'd had classes during high school.  Our draft had been conducted in drips and drabs on a piece of paper passed hand to hand in the center of a fantasy baseball magazine that one of us had bought but that we all treated as communal property.

The Girl brought a novel to the game.  She didn't - and doesn't - case a whit about baseball, though she has gotten better at enjoying a baseball game as a social time, chatting with friends and watching the world when we do happen to a baseball game.  I think Marilyn brought a book, too.  They spent a fair part of the game wandering the stadium and the rest of the time talking to each other and reading their books, each enjoying being alone as a pair.

Gamer and I watched the game...mostly.  He bought a scorecard and kept score, he had at every Cubs-Reds game he and I had seen together.

I say mostly because I remember the game rolling along at a tidy pace, scoreless into the sixth inning.  The play by play says there were only a half dozen hits in those first five innings and only a couple of runners even made it to second base.  I remember turning to Gamer at the start of the top of the sixth, a rookie pitcher was up to bat.  He'd made his major league debut the half inning before, having given up one walk in an inning of work.  I wasn't really paying attention.

I don't remember the swing or the pitch.  I remember the ball...rising.

One of us turned to the other as we saw the ball soar toward the stands away from us - we must have been somewhere near homeplate, maybe a bit toward first, maybe my memory is faulty.  "Wasn't that the pitcher?" one of us asked.  It might've been me, might've been him.

It was the pitcher.

It was his first major league pitch faced.

Jim Bullinger became the fourteenth batter (ten more have done it since) to hit a home run on the first pitch of his first major league at-bat.

And I love him for that.

He went on to have a great week, saving four games by the end of the week.  He saved two more the next week.  One more in the rest of the season.

But he saved all of them for my team.

Because I had picked up Jim Bullinger by the time we'd made it to the car.

The Cubs won in thirteen innings, Bullinger having long ago headed to the bench after three innings one one-run ball.

Jim Bullinger picked up the save in the second game, but I didn't see it.

When the second game got to the fifth inning, The Girl announced that we'd made it through two games - eighteen innings can be pretty long when you're not watching the game - and that the driver was going to be heading out.

That's why Jim Bullinger today.

To quote Pat Lamorte:

Jim, you were an unspectacular pitcher, crappy even, but in 1992 you hit a home run on the first pitch you faced in your first at-bat in the majors, one of only five pitchers to accomplish this feat...thanks for that. Go Cubs!

 Thanks, Jim.

Updating the Update: Monster Mini-Golf (part II)

Photos are now up on the Monster Mini-Golf update.

Check 'em...they're awesome...

And they're taking it on beautifully...

There's just something beautiful about old photographs, the washed out colors, the slightly blue tint.

I know that it's a feeling of nostalgia for a time that I never knew, but it's an effective feeling of nostalgia.

And this couple's wedding album blog does a marvelous job of capturing that sense of nostalgia.

Whoever did their photography - and video and web design - was absolutely spot on in creating a perfect keepsake that matches their wedding theme beautifully.

Check it...I especially recommend their photobooth pictures...and this photo which just makes me ache it's so gorgeous...

NASA and NPR - two of my favorite acryonyms

First, most of the images from the recently released NASA pics of the space shuttle mission are passable, moderately interesting.

But this one...the last glimpse of light through the atmosphere's thin blue sheen is gorgeous and will be one of my desktop backgrounds at school tomorrow.

And secondly, I am often amazed with NPR, and two stories in particular caught my ear today.

Kyle pointed out a story from this morning in which Neil Gaiman spoke on his love of audio books and interviewed David Sedaris.  Listening to Neil is marvelous enough, but when Sedaris's lilting lisp is thrown in, things can't get much better.

Then, there was the story on the way home today in which they discussed the challenges of dating in the age, handholding in the age of handhelds.  The story is marvelously well reported and worth a listen if only to hear them refer to something as a menage-a-tweet - a man, a woman, and an iPhone.

Update: Monster Mini-Golf (part II)

As I had promised, I revisited Monster Mini-Golf in West Chester at the urgings of Tony (who I'm guessing is actually Anthony Smith, franchise owner).

Turns out that his claim that "[they] have made lots of changes since your first visit" wasn't a hollow one.  They have actually added a number of additions to make the course a little more challenging.

First off, each hole now has a tee pad, something that I noted was a problem the first time.  When I first visited, the tee mats were a molded rubber monster/bear claw (seen faintly here).  Any putt from the tee pads had to roll off a distinct and significant (~1/4 inch) lip.  The tee pad itself was also uneven, having slightly raised parts where the pads of the paw would be found.  This lead to a very inconsistent departure from the tee pad.

Theses claw-shaped tee pads have been entirely banished, replaced instead with a simple carpet pad with bound edges and a thoroughly velcro-covered backing.  This simple change lead to a much truer initial roll to each hole.  The placement of a few of the tee pads still seemed questionable to me, effectively cutting off the opening three or four feet of some holes.  In an area where space is at a premium - the entire course takes up the back 1/2 to 2/3 of a strip mall location - this seems an odd choice.

The tee pad locations, have, however been well thought out as they provide some interesting paths through the course - often marked with a fluorescent arrow suggesting that the golfer putt below the coffin, up a ramp (more on that in a moment), or at a particular angle.  These arrows (see the ramp photo below to see one of the arrows) are far from prevalent - I only remember three of them in particular - but they do allow for some nice play options that might not otherwise be noticed.

Two of the holes have another addition, a spinner near the tee pad.  The spinner - something clearly designated with the Monster Mini Golf logo - that allows players to add another level of difficulty to the game.  Depending on where the spinner lands, the player may be required alter their game in one of six ways - including to putt with their eyes closed, roll their first shot instead of using the putter, putt with the putter handle, or to allow another player to be a living barricade by standing in one place on the hole (sufficiently away from the tee pad to still allow play).

I chose not to use the spinners and was assessed a stroke penalty by Calen who was keeping score for us.  While I may not care for the spinners, I can see that it would further the general party atmosphere that Monster Mini Golf is fostering.  Young golfers in particular would, I think, enjoy the spinner variety.  Thankfully, the spinners are restricted to just two of the eighteen holes.

The more significant changes to the course come with the addition of new barriers on some new holes.  The initial hole, for example, sees a significant breeze coming out of the "monster cage" behind the hole.  Any putt that would otherwise stop close to the hole is blown three or four feet from the hole rather than resting at gimme distance.  This "monster cage" was in place when The Girl and I initially played the course, but the breeze was apparently turned off, a significant change to the first hole.

The second hole, then, is also changed with the addition of a plastic ramp - about two and a half feet long, one foot up, one back down - in the optimum place for a first bank shot.  The ramp is easy enough to roll up and down - friction tape lines each slope, but the ramp does provide some much-needed variety in the otherwise monotonously level carpet throughout the course.

This added slope shows up again on one of the late holes in the form of a plastic dome around the hole.  The dome is decorated with a fluorescent red spiral and allows for no landing area at the top beside that at the bottom of the cup.  Any missed shot will come caroming down the slope.  The hill isn't ridiculously huge - probably no more than five or six inches in height.- but the variety in challenge is welcomed.

The two largest new challenges are on the ninth and seventeenth holes.  On the ninth, the previously U-shaped hole has been drastically improved with the addition of what looks like a skate ramp, allowing the first shot to cut through the U with the right angle and speed.  The ball travels up the ramp from the near side (conveniently marked with a glowing arrow) and down toward the hole, cutting off at least one stroke if successful - a great bonus to the course as I found the lack of options on how to play each hole repetitive and boring the first time.

The new challenge on the seventeenth hole wasn't operational when we visited - still being in the construction phase (though it was operational when I went back a week later to take the photos).  The new barricade is a skee ball game - named Skull Ball - which provides the players the option of hitting their first shot up the skee ball slope or avoiding the game entirely at the cost of a stroke or two.  Depending on how well the shot is struck - into the smallest skee ball ring being the best - there are four different paths that the ball will take.  The worst path is a minor hinderance as it puts the players in a place worse than they would have been had they hit a good first shot and avoided the skee ball game entirely.  The other three outcomes provide varying improvements, cutting at least a stroke and possibly two off the hole score.  The skee ball game was not yet operational - or even painted - and looked to be in need of some finishing touches, but I like the updating that the course is doing. 

The course continues to be immaculately maintained, looking as if it were just opened before we played our update round.  I still enjoy the decor - especially now that I see that each Monster Mini Golf location gets customization, allowing the semi-standard statuary to be customized for each locale.  (Check out the Indy location with Jared and Dave Letterman).  I'm a little disappointed to not get a Bengal or Red anywhere, but we do at least get a nice nod to the Fitworks next door.

I definitely enjoyed my second round at Monster Mini Golf far more than I did the first.

I'll happily return to this location.

There are two more - non-mini golf - items worth noting.

While we played one of the later holes, the host came on the intercom asking a trivia question.  He mentioned characters from a recent movie, providing more obvious characters as he went along, and asked which movie they all starred in.  When no one guessed New Moon or Twilight after a reasonable amount of time (probably a minute or so after the final clue was given) he gave the answer and stated that anyone who had come up with the correct answer would have gotten fifty dollars cash.

Admittedly, I didn't see the $50 given away - and I knew the answer at the time, most of our party did but just didn't want to go up and earn what we admitted would be a far lesser prize - so I can't say that they actually give away $50 or how often they give it away, but I do know that I will be answering if they ask a trivia question while I'm there again.

Calen also asked me to point out that their party rooms are impressively well stocked and outfitted for what she would have expected.  The room has two large tables - wooden, substantial, well within the creepy theme - with seating for nearly twenty children.  In each party room, there is also a refrigerator, a large sideboard (perfect for birthday party gifts) and a bit of extra space for larger items to be placed in waiting.  Admirably, the room is decorated in lenticular 'ghost paintings' which reveal ghoulish sights as an party goer would move across the room.  The party rooms are not black lit, providing more light as a birthday party would need.  They offer a number of different party packages - some of which give a lifetime pass for the special person.

According to Calen - who has children of her own - all of this makes for a pretty awesome place to have a kid's birthday party.

I have to admit that I have no clue whatsoever about that kind of stuff.

My parent's never let us do stuff like that.

Not that I'm bitter or anything, nope.  Not at all...

I will say, though, that I'm thinking about having my next ChemGuy birthday party there just so I can get the lifetime pass that comes with the teen/adult birthday party packages they offer.

Steak and a quick trip

'Caught a bit on some Food Network show - not the one shown here but an updated version - about Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, and now I'm thinking I should go back to NYC.



And, in an update on my world, The Girl and I have reservations to spend a few days in the Windy City, December 18-21.

Anybody have any suggestions as to what we should do and where we should eat?

Is there a Black Saturday?

From deep in a turkey and pumpkin pie hangover...or at least from the anticipation of one...

• Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish - Great story about a writer who tried to adopt a new identity and not get caught - the last page is marvelously well written
• Super Mario Bros Wii review - crap, another game to go buy?
• Rare Headshrinking Video Confirmed - it's from NatGeo, so I'm gonna trust it
• Bird & Magic - on ESPN's Sunday Conversation this week
• The Beatles Never Broke Up - I don't understand this at all
• Fact Check: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts - Yeah, I wasn't gonna read it anyway
  
• AV Club: Best of the Decade - the music list alone gave me thirty albums to listen to
• Revenue sharing a mess - repeat after me, "it's just a business...it'll correct itself if it stops making money"
• A Song about the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual - and a jerk of a DM
• Fight Club ten years later - nice analysis
• What on Earth is this video? - yeah, it just doesn't make sense that these kinds of things exist...clearly a result fo a misguided folk singer
  
• The Geography of a Recession - animated map showing the rise in unemployment county by county...check out the Black Hills
• Why Logo Design Does Not Cost $5 - the steps involved in designing a logo and why you get what you pay for...good explanation of what matters about a logo
• Stained Glass d20s - gorgeous
• Will this vaccine cure smoking? - The brief blurb suggests yes.
• Wii Energizer 4X Charging Station - The search is over.  This is what I want for Christmas.
• SkiFree - I never knew this.  My world is rocked...simply rocked.
  

Free mp3s on Amazon

Just clicked through on the link to redeem my $3 in free mp3 from Amazon.

You have to purchase the mp3s by 11/30, but that's like three days to make a decision for some free music, folks.

Grab 'em.

Thanks to The Consumerist for the hook up.

Christmas music...now appropriate

Now that we're past Thanksgiving, Christmas music is again appropriate, and I couldn't be happier.

Celebrate with me, folks...

Geico?

How is it that Geico has five significant advertising campaigns going right now?











Isn't there supposed to be something called brand identity?

Jimmy Fallon, everybody, Jimmy Fallon

Sorry, too good not to post immediately...

Christmas giving

The Girl and I have chosen to go the charity route each of the last two Christmases (sp?), giving a laptop to the One Laptop Per Child movement a couple of years ago and giving a DS and some games to the Childs Play Charity last year.

We're looking for a worthy charity this year - something that would end up as a fairly anonymous gift, and I'm currently leaning toward Donors Choose.

Anybody have any other suggestions for this year?

Quick question...

What is the greatest female-fronted rock band ever?

• The Pretenders?
• The Go-Gos?
• Blondie?
• The Bangles?
• Garbage?
• Bananarama?
• The Eurythmics?
• Jefferson Airplane?
• Starship?
• Heart?
• The Donnas?
• The Cranberries?
• No Doubt?
• 10,000 Maniacs?
• Big Brother & the Holding Company?
  

I need to know these things.

And thanks to these three links for help in even starting a list...

Update: Newest New Site Design for Princeton

In case anybody wanted to know - and, in response to Slug's question in the comments...the exact words that I sent in when asked my opinion...

I'm putting them in black type so that people can give their opinions of the design without reading mine first if they want to.

- I like the modern look.  It’s very much a look that fits in with lots of schools and universities around the country right now.

- I love the ability to post video.  That could be a great place for us to highlight some of our programs.  We will need to actually generate some content, however, if we’re going to put that front and center, and generation of video content tends to be a lot more labor intensive than does print content.  If we put up one video and it stays there – or if we rotate among out of date content – it will be a giant sore spot, though.

- The page seems hugely busy and jumbled to me.  There are links to every possible thing that anyone could possibly want (grades, mission, vision, registration, visual arts, athletics, treasurer, and a dozen other things).  Because of this huge amount of links, I find the page very hard to navigate visually.

- The horizontal navigation bar above the Viking head seems more suited to the district pages than it does to the individual school page, as do many of the menu options down the left hand side (employment opportunities, our schools, district archives, eNews Sign-Up, school board, mission and vision, central office, district news)

-  My eyes are drawn very firmly to the football photo as well as the Viking head.  I don’t get any visual prompting as to where I should look next for the important information.    Out of curiosity, will these photos rotate as the page is loaded or will they provide a different, static photo with each reload of the page?

- There are dozens of pages I can think of that would have no current home under the various navigation schemes – OGT tips page, technology department site, Odin’s Word, the science department, my course website,

- There seem to be duplications among the various links.

- For example, calendar is linked under quick links (on the left) and This Week at Princeton (in the bottom right) as well as – maybe – in the “One Stop Shop for Parents” in the top right listed as “schedules”.

- On the district page, the “Quick Link” to Our Schools seems redundant with the full links in the red, left area to each school.

- In the “Quick Links” there is a link to School Board and Central Office, and there are separate links to each Central Office Department across the top.

- The high school page doesn’t seem to be rendering correctly at the top of the page.  On the district page, there are two news stories (?) up top (the right one fades into the “One Stop Shop for Parents”, but these don’t show on the high school page.  Nor does the phrase “One Stop Shop for Parents”.

- I like the “This week at Princeton” bar to the right.  Will these be school-specific or will they simply be the same three or so events for the whole district?

- I don’t care for the Inspire to Dream… logo in the bottom right.  I don’t feel that it serves to contribute anything other than an additional image to draw my eye.

- On the district page, the names of the schools are nicely arranged, but I notice that the full name for our middle school (PCMS) has been shortened for what I assume are aesthetic reasons.

- The possibilities of ‘District Archives’ – though I don’t like that link from the school specific pages – intrigues me.  I have been collecting lists and information for the past couple of years – as well as audio podcasts with a couple of Princeton historians – in hopes of putting together a district/high school history site and have just never had the manpower to get that together.

- I don’t see anywhere for a staff directory (unless that is the intent of ‘contacts’ in the One Stop Shop for Parents).  It’s something that has been sorely lacking for a while on the high school and district sites.

- It’s interesting that nothing on the district or school specific site actually mentions our academics.  There are links to music, athletics, visual arts, treasurer, superintendent, school board, central office – but not a single link to anything that I would call academic departments.

- The Princeton High School logo at the very top has an issue with the grey bar behind the words High School.  The grey changes colors at the end of the final L.

All in all, I see the need for the change.  Things need to modernize and become more visually interesting.

I also understand that there is a desire to have all the district school websites become homogenized.  It’s not a desire that I hold, but I know that my view of the district is very different from other people’s.

I don’t care for the apparent shift toward a single website which is for Princeton City Schools while only allowing  (out of a page design of roughly 940 x 730 pixels – 686200 pixels total) only 470 x 340 pixels plus 240 x 260 pixels of video (for 222200 pixels total) of actual school-specific content.  That’s less than 33% of the page being actual school content, leaving room for three news stories at any one time.

And I, admittedly, don’t care for the overall design shift from plain, simple, dumpy (all of which I fully admit that the high school mainpage certainly is now) but with a focus on communicating useful information at a glance while celebrating the interesting things happening around the building to a much more professional site which is visually overwhelming while providing an surfeit and duplication of links.