amkean pronunciation

back to "this happened"

2009-11-11T18:23:00.004-06:00

I've been in a little bit of a good mood lately because the weather has been a little above the average for the season for the first time in a while, and I've been writing and running a tiny bit. School is going well, too, the occasional student complaint notwithstanding.

CHG's mom and brother got here Thursday, right after Rasheed Wallace (the cat) somehow injured his paws. He's now on pain meds and antibiotics to see if that helps before having to do an examination under sedation.

I got CHG through Pet Haven, and we supported them by going to their Fall Benefit Saturday night. With my new job and tax bracket, I'm now the type of person who attends benefits. We got caught up in the silent auction. There were a lot of items for low starting bids, and not enough people bidding for all the items, so I got a couple things for minimum bid. There was a pet fashion show with adorable animals, but the photos aren't online yet.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

2009-11-10T19:16:00.002-06:00

I just finished Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania. Bob read this one and told me about it, and the thesis dovetails nicely with my thoughts about being a sports fan, which are "why would you set yourself up for almost certain heartbreak by loving a team whose success you really have next to no responsibility for?" I'm not sure that this question was answered completely. Because of the rush when they win is part of it.

It wasn't a bad book, and I enjoyed reading it, but it wasn't fantastic. The humor wasn't that funny (but it wasn't terrible either). The author, who is apparently older than I am but has a picture making him look like he just left college, is/was a reporter for the New York Times and writes for the New Yorker. This makes it all the more distracting when he uses phrases like "empirical" and "cognitive dissonance" without seeming to understand exactly what they mean. Their uses are in the ballpark. He writes about the "cognitive dissonance" of hardcore followers of the Crimson Tide who refuse to camp in Auburn but won't stay home because they are RVers. So it's in the ballpark of cognitive dissonance, but it sounds a little more like a Catch-22 (but not completely, either). Cognitive dissonance would be what a hardcore racist Alabama fanatic would experience seeing a bunch of black players responsible for an Alabama championship.

He also uses the term "empirical" when he's comparing the standard the team faces of being better than their opponent versus holding the team to the standard of the Bear Bryant teams of yore. He says the first is "relative" while the second is "empirical." In testing, they would be norm-referenced vs. criterion-referenced. I'm not sure that "empirical" has anything to do with the concept he's describing.

When I started reading the book, it made me want to buy an RV and follow the Gophers or Heels, but then I got kind of tired of the idea. It would be fun for a couple weekends, but I don't need another focus in my life. Although I've probably done the same thing at times, the author's emotional and self-aware irrational support of Bama got annoying.

I've got to get to work writing. Behind from computer problems.

bad sign

2009-11-09T17:03:00.002-06:00

The first thing I noticed about this sign was the terrible graphic design in the typesetting. I believe there are three names listed there, but you have to work at it to figure that out.

The second thing? What's the term for completely undercutting your message by the way you're presenting your message? I don't think it's "ironic" that the New Dignity Party is demanding dignity on their sign in about the most undignified way you could while still being tasteful ("three year old having a tantrum" is what comes to mind), but I don't know the phrase to describe it although there must be one. English majors?

Playing the Enemy

2009-11-06T09:02:00.003-06:00

People get to this blog by searching for some weird stuff. Lots of pronunciations, as you might expect. Lando (LAN-doh) Calrissian (kal-RISS-ee-un)

In lieu of writing, I finished Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation by John Carlin. This is billed as the story of South Africa's underdog 1995 Rugby World Cup victory, which Nelson Mandela leveraged to bring the country, black and white, together and everyone lived in racial harmony from then on.

A couple things wrong with that, but first, I did like the book. Well written. As an amateur critic, I'll just say it's well written, and then you'll trust me that it is so I can talk about what I want to talk about.

First thing wrong: the actual rugby part starts maybe 2/3rds of the way through the book. The first 2/3rds is all about Nelson Mandela's background vis a vis apartheid.

Not that there's anything wrong with this, except that somehow I thought the book would focus mostly on the story surrounding the rugby world cup. It was interesting to hear about Mandela's time on Robben Island, which I may have visited had I read this book before I went to Cape Town.

True to the author's description, you could look at this book for lessons on how to win friends and influence people. Nelson Mandela is a master at this. The book is fairly descriptive on some of his techniques at winning the opposition to his side, described in the context of his meetings with opposition leadership. All of you reading this are probably already masters at interpersonal communication, but I listened carefully.

I thought Nelson Mandela was pretty cool before I read this, but know I know specifics, which make him cooler.

The actual rugby story itself ought to be made into a movie, it's so good. It's like the 1980 USA ice hockey team (except less so) combined with Abraham Lincoln uniting a divided nation. The story also validates my purchase of the Springbok hoodie, which I did while completely ignorant of the way Mandela used the Springbok team to bring the nation together. It also validated my gut concern that often rugby is seen as a sport for white people to be fans of.

When I was in 9th grade English class, we had to write a research paper on any topic we wanted. So open ended! Such an opportunity for creativity! I chose to write about apartheid. This was in 1989-1990 when apartheid was still going strong, at least to outsiders. Being a good Lutheran, I couldn't believe that I wasn't hearing about this issue in church and decided it was my mission to help with this fight. I didn't do a lot with the fight church-wise, but Kleven used my paper as an example for future students, so I helped to end apartheid I guess.

And how did I, a 15 year old kid in Minnesota, get so concerned about apartheid? The answer is Starfire. Starfire was a superhero who took on apartheid in a couple comics that came out when I was about 12. This is always the example I think of when I think about how reading comics was beneficial. I read that 2-comic series, and somehow it really connected with me, so I wrote the paper.

Having visited South Africa briefly, I don't think the nation followed the soaring trajectory of the rise of the Springboks through the rugby world cup. I think it's a far more violent country than any other in Southern Africa, and my (naive) theory is that that's a lingering effect from apartheid. I don't think the violence in South Africa is disputed. A man threatened me with an unseen knife in the short time I was there because I wouldn't give him money when he asked. The rugby win didn't provide housing for all the people in the townships. It didn't provide jobs or improve schools. Of course it didn't erase history.

I like that I can get a book like this, about rugby in South Africa, to pick up at a library less than a mile from my house.

(Also, the violence there isn't a reason not to go. Just be smart and don't go walking through the city streets at night which is where I had my encounter.)

bad news, man

2009-11-04T06:15:00.000-06:00

Two mornings ago, I was reading Consumer Reports, as is my wont, and I came across an article on computers. I bought the MacBook Pro on which I'm currently writing just a couple months ago, and I was gratified to find it at the top of the list for its category. They also had a category for service, and Apple is at the top. "That's nice," I thought, thinking about what little service I needed in my history of Mac use. Twelve hours later, my hard drive died. Less than 24 hours after that, and within 12 hours of when I first called Apple, I had a new hard drive in my computer. I live in a fairly big city with multiple Apple stores, so the person on the phone ("Carol") set an appointment for me at the (ahem) Genius Bar at one Apple store. Once I got there, they didn't have the right part, so I asked if I could go to a different store. Sure, Mall of America has it. I brought my computer to Mall of America, and they had the hard drive replaced in 90 minutes.

I don't have a backup of my computer on site because of the new Firewire port, so I'm still in the process of restoring files. I think I'll only lose about 1000 words of Nanowrimo 2009, although I haven't written since the crash.

Retraining is hard

2009-11-03T06:24:00.002-06:00

Noveling...I'll keep the writing blog updated as time warrants.

I played 3 minute TMGB science music videos for my kids last Friday. Sample responses: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" "THIS IS GAY!!!" "WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THAT?" "THERE'S TOO MUCH MUSIC"

Then I played a 20 minute traditional old school video on Ferrous Metals where they learned what percent chromium content is in different steels, and I gave them trivial questions to keep them focused. No complaints, only compliance.

They are trained by the time they get to high school.

musical "get off my lawn"

2009-10-28T17:52:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking and writing about how music is awesome. It's what makes Glee magical. It's really good for learning new things. It helps when you're running. But not all music is good.

While I love the harmonies, countermelodies, and backup parts brought to prominence in the arrangements done in Glee, I cannot listen to pop a cappella groups. UNC had three. I don't deny that some of the songs are done really well, and hearing someone nail some vocals is thrilling. It took me a while to figure it out, but the thing that really bugs me about the a cappella I hate is the vocal percussion. When an ensemble attempts to imitate a drum set, I want to stick chopsticks into my ears. College a capella groups are too cute by far. Concentrate on the singing and do that well.

At the church I grew up in, they introduced the handbell choir. If you're not familiar, there are a bunch of chimes shaped like bells, one for each note you'd need, and a group wearing gloves rings them to make a song. There are lots of clips on youtube. Now critical thinking has never been the strong suit in my multiple intelligences, but I remember thinking how stupid a handbell choir was. First of all, it's expensive. Second, the gloves. Third, legitimate musical instruments, including voice, require technique. If a 6 year old can make the exact same sound out of an instrument as someone who's practiced for years, that person has practiced the wrong thing. Handbell choir is the Guitar Hero of uptight religious music.

While I'm on the topic of music, if you've got a social networking profile, the one thing you can do that's worse than showing off your indie cred is to say "I like all music except country and rap." Oh, you do?

cooking update

2009-10-27T06:01:00.003-05:00

Because I've made rules in my head about not procrastinating with idle TV and games, the devil inside me has found a loophole. It turns out that I can spend a lot of free time every day cooking food. What, there's nothing else to cook? Bake a dessert. We get the big box of vegetables every week, so the job kind of has to get done. It seems constructive, like a skill that you're improving. And you get to eat the finished product. But I suspect there's an ulterior motive involving avoidance of work.

I use supercook to find recipes to use the stuff we have, along with my favorite vegan cookbooks. I made curried chickpeas and kale yesterday in the crock pot, then forgot it was there before I got home. I wasn't excited about eating it, but it was way better than I thought. Cooked and seasoned chickpeas are about the most delicious thing around.

Anyway, I still have vegetables left to use, even after I feel like I've been cooking a lot. And that doesn't factor in the winter squash we're accumulating.

The Halloween costume idea I had isn't going to work in this short timeframe so I need another idea. I went to Joann fabric yesterday and it made me want to buy stuff and start projects.

2009-10-26T19:40:00.000-05:00

P & Q

2009-10-26T06:10:00.002-05:00

To clarify my thoughts before on introvertedness and social interactions, I'm not uncomfortable with silence itself. It's that sometimes I figure that another person is wondering why I'm not talking and I don't want to make others uncomfortable. There's another teacher who I don't know what to say to ever. Then I overthink the situation and find it weird.

I'm also not saying that it's boring to be introverted. Instead, I said that extroverts have more fun because they have more opportunities afforded them and more things happen for them and to them. And when I said they have more fun, I meant "all other things being equal."

I'm going to try to put together a Halloween costume this year. I may fail.

More on Glee

2009-10-25T15:46:00.001-05:00

This week's Glee was one of my favorites. Young MC helped make it so, as well as a healthy amount of Sue Sylvester. I feel like the show is finding its legs. Like I said before, I've had problems feeling invested in the characters, although that's changing. Kurt's coming out episode did a good job with his backstory. I feel the more emotionally invested in Emma (Irma). I thought that Will was going to say no, no, no to her after his talk with Ken and irreparably break her heart. Will told Ken "it won't happen again" after saying "I haven't discouraged her." But then he didn't discourage her and it kind of did happen again.

The only other characters I really *care* about right now are Quinn, because she's really vulnerable and I don't see how she has a happy ending because things are going to get worse for her, and I would worry about Finn if I thought he was at all vulnerable to anything. Although he's reflective and worries about things, I don't see him getting devastated. Of course after writing that, I realize there's one enormous landmine in Finn's path. Which leads me to some suggestions on how to keep improving the show.

1. Give us more about Finn's backstory. The most popular kid in school was raised by a single mom and had the lawn care guy as a brief father figure. Increase his vulnerability. Make me worry about him. Show what's at stake if he doesn't handle the landmine well.

2. Take your time. This week, in a single episode, Rachel and Puck got together in a move that hadn't been foreshadowed. Then they separated, got back together, then separated again, and in the same episode Sue turned good then back to evil, leaving things the way they were before the show started, just like a sitcom would. Stretch out your story arcs. You've been picked up for a season. You don't have to rush anymore. Viewers will be able to pick up on what's going on. Let the arcs play out.

3. Continue to find consistency in the place between fantasy and reality where the musical acts appear. Of course, it would be unentertaining for Will to pass out sheet music and then for us to see how bad the group is the first time they perform. But for the pilot, the two major musical numbers (and the minor ones) were all plausibly rehearsed before we saw the performance. So I got used to that. Then this past week, everyone knows "Bust a Move" with choreography and huge smiles the first time they see it. Fine, we can make that leap, but be consistent.

I talked before about not buying the excitement the 2nd wave of glee club members (cheerleaders and football players, save Finn) had for glee club. Still a problem, but less so over time when their buy-in becomes more realistic. When Will shoved Puck over as part of his performance, I thought Puck's in-character reaction would be to get angry about being pushed. So their individual identities are muted during musical performances to enable them to meld as a group? Fine, but be consistent.

Glee is the Entertainment Weekly cover story this week, and the article, among other things, says that Joss Whedon will be directing an episode. And that Bryan Adams is one of the few who have said no to using his music on the show. Yes, Bryan with a "B". Huh?

Also, the people running the show do know that Sue is not straight, right?

F/X

2009-10-24T07:45:00.005-05:00

I half-watched the movie Be Kind Rewind last night and really enjoyed it as someone who's made films myself. (I say "half-watched" because I've devastated my attention span to the point where I can't possibly focus solely on the movie when my laptop and the internet are shouting for my attention.) The plot revolves around Mos Def and Jack Black recreating all these movies because they accidentally erased the real movies. So I thought before watching it that the fun would come from seeing the actors recreate classic scenes, and that's certainly part of it. But this is a Michel Gondry movie, and he's really good at creating special effects without fancy post-production aids, i.e., without computer graphics or green screen. So in this movie, you see the characters using Gondry's techniques to create the effects from the famous movies. For example, in Rush Hour, they've got a scene where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are hanging from a skyscraper and the shot is from above, showing how high they are. In Be Kind Rewind, they take a child's play mat that has a town on it with roads that you can drive your toy car around, and put it under the actors so that there's a false perspective that's way more convincing that you'd think it would be. In a time when it's hard to think of an effect filmmakers can't put on a screen, it's fascinating to see the lo-fi methods to do similar work.

savages

2009-10-21T18:59:00.002-05:00

Shortly before I sat down to write about the movies I'd seen yesterday, someone smashed in the window to my car which was parked back by the alley next to the garage. The perps may have been interrupted while committing the crime, because nothing was taken, although the dash was pulled out. I noticed the antenna was sitting differently and had unlocked the car door when I saw the broken glass on the passenger seat and thought "that's not supposed to be there." I drove it to work after hastily taping trash bags over the opening (thanks for breaking in during the rainiest weather period) and took it to Trinh's after work. I just got it back today, almost as good as new. Trinh's. It's good.

I wasn't super upset about that since I still was able to get to work, but then I was stupid and careless while removing the trash bag (which was really loud) and sliced my finger open really deep. I had to go back into school to wrap it, but my priority was getting the car in. After that, there was no food at home for supper so then I got in a bad mood. That's all it took. Three strikes. Take away one of those things, and I'm fine.

I was observed by the principal today. It was a funny story. The end.

movies

2009-10-20T04:56:00.002-05:00

I watched a few movies over my long weekend. First, I made an unusual trip to a place that projects movies onto a large screen, and people pay a small amount to see the "projecting" of the movie. There were also snacks being sold. It had been a while since I'd been to a movie theater, but because I didn't have to work the next day, when I got invited to go see The Hangover at the Riverview, I went. The movie fits in well with this new generation of comedies, Will Ferrell-style, but the notable thing was the two distinctive laughs going on in the theater. One male, one female. The guy laughed loudly when no one else was laughing. It made me think of bringing Mike to the theater, not that he ever did that.

I used to write a lot about going out with Mike, and now I don't anymore. I miss it.

I watched two documentaries at home. The Kirby Dick film Outrage looks at how much damage closeted gay politicians who have this reaction formation in their legislating do to human rights. Since W's been gone, my anger over politics has been in remission because I just can't stay at that level. Watching this movie brought back some of those feelings. And Kirby Dick has good style as a filmmaker. I've only seen Outrage and This Film Is Not Yet Rated of his, but now I want to see more.

And then I watched Nursery University about the incredible competition to get your 3 year old into a proper preschool that leads to an Ivy League college that takes place in Manhattan. Pretty ridiculous, that situation.

The Jodi Index

2009-10-19T06:11:00.000-05:00

here

Social drinking

2009-10-19T05:44:00.003-05:00

I have more fun at social gatherings when I drink. I'm pretty introverted in the Myers-Briggs sense that although I can be social in a large group, when the group is mostly strangers it saps my energy. However, at a certain point of intoxication, a switch flips and I want to associate with others and make grandiose plans for future social interactions. This is why the DTH police roundup said that I was trying to get "to Franklin Street." I wanted to go somewhere where I could take advantage of my temporary extrovertedness.

I don't think I was always this introverted. I have some memories of being a little crazy up until about age 6 or 7. But I think was taught in many ways that being quiet was good. Being quiet to a fault. Because being quiet is sometimes uncomfortable, and being uncomfortable around others makes it more difficult to get what you want. And extroverts have more fun.

Why is being quiet uncomfortable? Mostly because of social norms, I guess. With some people it's not uncomfortable to just not talk. I think I'm really bad at small talk, which makes things more difficult. I can never think of something smart to say when someone makes a small talk comment to me about something I don't care about at all.

Oh, this? Yeah, I ran back in 2003.

2009-10-18T15:41:00.003-05:00

I haven't been running a lot, but I went maybe 4 miles yesterday and 8 today. When I watched Dirk in the Twin Cities marathon, I saw lots of Boston Marathon apparel. Because that's what you do, you let everyone know that even though you're not running today, you've run fast enough to qualify for Boston before.

I see way more Vikings apparel on Sundays than I have in the last few years. The Vikes have their die-hard fans, but there's also a large group of fans in the area who just support a winner. These were the people wearing Packers stuff in the mid-90's.

There's a Create a Character contest for The Simpsons.

I don't think I really got to my point in a post yesterday about the reason I'm bored with the blog is that it's never really been clear what the point is. If you want to get a lot of readers (which is not the point of this blog), you're supposed to have a narrow focus. Far from it, right? So the lack of focus is a hindrance sometimes.

I'm not exactly sure what point I just supposedly made clear.

writing a blog

2009-10-17T10:51:00.005-05:00

One of the goals I wrote down besides the reading goal is "drink deliberately." I have yet to enter a routine this school year, a month and a half in, partly because I've maintained summer habits well into the school year. Summer habits mainly consist of drinking beer, sitting outside, and staying up late. The sitting outside part has been scaled back recently, but that's what I was doing for most of September.

I haven't talked about the role of alcohol in my life (a phrase which seems to make it a character in the story of my life) on this blog, but I'll talk a little about it now because A. I don't work at a sober school anymore and B. I'm bored with this blog.

When I first started writing, work was a huge part of my life and who I was. I had been given advice when I started at the sober school that I shouldn't say whether I drink or not because kids act like it's a big deal. I followed that advice throughout my time there, even though I didn't think it mattered much by the end. I anonymized everything on here as much as I could because a student finding this blog would have been about the worst thing in the world at that school considering how tight-knit everyone was, for better or for worse. I actually like the distance at my new job which means that not everyone knows your business. The boundaries at the sober school were about what you would expect from a place for and by addicts (no disrespect). (There's a vein for further exploration—the habits and characteristics of recovering addicts.) In reality, no student of mine at the old school would have the persistence necessary to track down this blog. Even if I told them it existed, they'd spend one minute looking and then demand to know the URL.

As for reason B, I started this blog without telling a single other person about it, just keeping it for my own benefit, which continues to be the ultimate purpose. I like that I can look back to October 2003 and see what I was doing (wasting time on Friendster). Ultimately, though, that doesn't keep me going. Which is why I have a bunch of notebooks with some consistency then huge gaps in dates between entries. I forget now how I introduced the blog to others, but the fact that others read this makes a huge difference in my motivation to write. So thanks for the comments and the hits, everyone. It helps to keep me doing something I think is important but not always fun.

Which is why it's so hard to get back into a writing routine. The payoff is so far down the road, and no one reads the stuff. So I'm going to make the public commitment I made, perhaps I'll post some of my work-in-progress, and I'm going to try to write some shorter form stuff, too, stuff I can finish.

Anyway, composed a lot in my head about drinking, but suffice it to say here that while drinking is fun, there's a price to be paid. So I'm making a change to a school year routine so that I can manage to wake up in the morning to do something important but not urgent.

external motivation required

2009-10-17T10:21:00.002-05:00

I am publicly committing to having a version of the first novel I wrote available for review by the end of March.

The Hunger Games

2009-10-17T10:01:00.002-05:00

I finished The Hunger Games yesterday. It took me less than a week given that it's a young adult book. Although I said before in this space that I was going to read 3 books a month, a look back at my notes says that I committed to two books a month. I'll count this book as one-half.

The Hunger Games falls into the category of really fun to read but it feels like empty calories. I hadn't heard of it as of a month ago, so you may not have either. The plot is kind of like The Running Man. In a dystopian future North America divided into 12 districts, an authoritarian central government forces each district to provide one male and one female teenager to enter an arena (think national park) for a battle royale to the death. If finding out what happens in this battle sounds cool to you, you'll like reading the book. If you want to know a lot about the society that might produce a ritual such as this, you might have to wait until the other books in the trilogy. The second one recently came out.

There's a love triangle in the book that I didn't care at all about. The character I felt the most sympathy gets developed a little and then is killed off. Still, entertaining. I liked how the handler communicated with the main character via operant conditioning.

I'll probably read the sequel because I tend to start "good for you" books and then lose interest, so I need a "candy" book once in a while to keep reading.

all hail

2009-10-15T08:17:00.003-05:00

After taking ten days off of running due to "stuff," I ran 4 a week ago and then decided to run long last Sunday for the first time in two weeks. I made the 14 miles with sore knees at the end, and got a boost from listening to Neko Case sing in the New Pornographers. She's having fun and letting that voice loose.

One really joyous thing is to see a huge talent show off that talent. Especially when that talent involves music. I haven't prioritized "being musical" in my life, but feel that I should because we're hardwired to appreciate music. I've become conscious of the musical scores in TV and movies and think about how much less emotionally affecting certain scenes would be without the accompaniment.

Speaking of TV and music, new episodes of Glee couldn't possibly match the delicious perfection of the pilot, but I'm still watching for the music and for Sue Sylvester. The biggest problem I have is accepting the premise that the popular kids not only joined glee club, but are trying their hardest and putting in the work necessary to produce those numbers. Last week, they started to explain Quinn's motivation, but I still have trouble believing that Puck would give a shit about glee club and wouldn't have quit by now.

I'm on a four day weekend. Maybe I'll say more with this space starting with this extra time.

The rest of the footage

2009-10-10T19:54:00.002-05:00

These decisions won't criticize themselves

2009-10-09T05:42:00.004-05:00

When Mike was over for Monday night football, he asked if I'd rather have a Vikings victory over the Packers, or the Twins win over the Tigers. It was a pretty easy question given the playoff stakes in the Twins game. Chip Caray was not good and is getting criticized on these internets so that I don't have to do the same. At this point, I'm just happy the Twins made it, but if somehow they win 2 games in this series, I'll no longer be satisfied with it and will be disappointed if they don't win 3.

In all the excitement over the win, I saw only a mention about how the heroics may have been unnecessary had Nathan come in for the entire 8th inning. The mention mentioned Gardy coming under fire for his decision, so maybe that was in the press conference which I didn't watch. I was completely dumbfounded when Gomez first came to bat. It was the middle of a Twins rally where they were threatening to score, and I hadn't realized that Gomez had been entered as a defensive replacement after Kubel's last at bat. I saw some commenting about what a genius move this was because Kubel wasn't fast enough to score the eventual winning run, but come on, the game's completely different—Kubel wouldn't have been where Gomez was in the 12th—and maybe Kubel drives in Punto from 2nd in the bottom of the 9th to win it there.

In August, I did an exercise to attempt to re-evaluate how I was spending my time and focus on things important to me. One of my ongoing goals is to read three books a month. I'm not sure that I made that in September, so I'm going to mention here when I finish a book for my own reference.

I finished The Tenderness of Wolves in September for sure. This takes place in the 1800s during fur trading times in cold Canada. The novel is driven by a murder mystery but introduces multiple strands that interweave as the novel goes on. Very little of the book is about wolves, but it's still good. What's good about it? The complexity of the plot, the way the book rewards careful reading, the way the reader can figure things out earlier than they're revealed for sure, the characters and the unexpected interactions between them. It was difficult at first when much of the relationships were being established, but got easier later on. Plus, it contains Norwegians.

Golf Zimbabwe

2009-10-05T05:32:00.004-05:00

Rolé is going to play golf at Somerset today as part of Caddy Day, where alumni caddy can play the course. Despite having been a looper there for 10 years, I've never heard of caddy day, let alone been invited. Weak.

I played golf twice in 2009. In two different foreign countries. In June I played a course that was a farmer's field that he converted to a golf course. There were maybe 6 pins, and then you could play 18 holes by teeing off and approaching the pins from different directions. It was a homebrew course and just there for the locals mostly. And me.

The second time I played was the day after my birthday in Zimbabwe. Lorrie had offered for me to play with the men who golf every Friday, and Lorrie warned me that they drink at least as much as they golf which sounded good to me. Even though the idea of golfing with strangers wouldn't normally be appealing, I thought that this was something you didn't say no to—the chance to golf in Zimbabwe.

It turned out that the men golf every Friday except this particular one, so Lorrie offered for me to golf with the ladies. We had a sixsome, and two people were just learning to golf. The experienced women had the group switch to a scramble format after the first two holes took us an hour. One of the ladies just learning was athletic, funny, and friendly. The other had a pre-shot routine that was over a minute long involving gripping and regripping the club. It still took us almost 3 hours to golf 8 holes (we skipped the 9th because it was getting so late).

Lowlights of the experience: my golfing. I used all my wishing for a good hit off the first tee, and then started sucking after that.

Highlights of the experience: the wildlife. There were warthogs all over the course. Normally, I'd be scared of a warthog, but they were the Canada geese of Zimbabwean golf. Ubiquitous and a little destructive. The warthogs would root around the ground for food, tearing up the turf. There were herds of antelope on the course, too, like Waterbuck and Impala. Also, cans of beerce were $1 from the beer guy.

2009-10-04T10:45:00.002-05:00

dirk.