The Big Five-Oh

This is post number 50 for TPP. I'm proud of myself for coming up with something to say for 50 straight days. Now that I re-think that a bit, it should surprise no one that I can think of something to say for 50 straight days. People might be more impressed if I shut up for 50 days! Regardless, the blogging experiment is moving forward and leading me somewhere. This weekend I finished Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward. The moral of the story? If you plan for a war, the plan will take on a life and momentum of its own. Something that big is like Godzilla, or maybe The Blob. Unpredictable. You might think you are just preparing for contingencies when suddenly you find yourself in a quagmire. A sobering read, to be sure. And people wonder why I like fiction. I get 'scoped on Wednesday--not soon enough!

Lazy Sunday

TPP readers will notice that I spruced up the site a bit, adding some color and re-organizing the links lists. What a time sink this stuff is! One minute I log on, the next thing I look up and see an hour has passed, maybe two. Yikes! I'm spending my life in cyberspace. Although I have been laid up with this damn knee injury, I'm finding it difficult to write. I thought having all this home time on my hands would allow me to get some of my new story ideas together. Alas, I've been reading, blogging, listening to ballgames, and watching pointless TV. No excuses, just not delivering the goods. The end of the school year is always stressful at work, and I'm feeling oddly detached because of my impending surgery. Wednesday is D-Day, and I'm taking that day off, of course, and Thursday and Friday as well. After that, who knows? I've got enough accumulated sick leave to take as much time as I need. The orthopedist scoffs at my worries about "rehab," claiming I'll be good as new very shortly. My friends who've had similar arthroscopic treatments concur. We'll see. Time for some sitting in the sun and reading more of Lee Child's Killing Floor.

Derby Day

Street Sense, the favorite, won the Kentucky Derby today. I couldn't tell you anything about it, but it was exciting to watch the race. The horses are magnificent, who doesn't like watching them run? As a sporting event, it is marginally better than those 10-20 second Olympic sprints. At least you get two minutes worth of excitement at the Derby, and because it is horse and rider, you don't get that "lab rat" feeling that track and field events always evoke. The hype associated with this event is nauseating, the broadcast unwatchable. And who would watch it? The race doesn't last as long as a commercial break. Post time was listed as 6:04 EDT, but the gates opened several minutes later. I suppose that not enough of the rich and famous were lauded and "interviewed." One thing the Derby has going for it is bourbon. This is Kentucky, land of bourbon. Naturally, we toasted post time with a glass of bourbon. In this case Maker's Mark. Now I suppose it should have been Woodford Reserve mint juleps, but I'm a "whiskey neat" kind of guy. Even better, the Giants won today, and Barry hit number 744, his tenth of the season. It will be fun to watch Bud Selig squirm when Barry is introduced at the All-Star Game (in SF this year) having already broken Aaron's record. What will be even more fun is the Giants in first place. We'll see. The phenom gets to pitch tomorrow, Tim Lincecum. When you are a fan for a long time, you see prospects come and go, and there are very few who actually become veteran major leaguers, let alone stars. Will Clark was a special prospect, his rookie year was 1986, and he was a bona fide NL star from 1987 to 1993 for the Giants. He spent very little time in the minors because he clearly didn't need it. Tim Lincecum generates the same buzz that "Will the Thrill" did. He has spent very little time in the minors because the only people who can hit off him are major leaguers. It has taken more than 20 years for the Giants to have a "sure thing" prospect, a true phenom. On the flip side, young Mr. Lincecum (does he shave?) has probably already been over-hyped, and if he isn't the next Tom Seaver, we'll all be disappointed! Regardless of how the team hits this year (anemically, so far, with signs of life), the pitching will be fun. Zito-Cain is a great 1-2 punch, curveball lefty and power righty. We saw another tough youngster today--Noah Lowry--beat a good hitting Phillies lineup despite atrocious fielding behind him. Old Morris has been cool and crafty and very effective. Now we get Tim Lincecum, the Next Big Thing. I'll raise a glass of bourbon for your first pitch tomorrow. Go Giants!

Technorati

I'm now a member of the "technological literati." How's that grab ya? We all have to be members of something, what? Actually, it is a website, and a new feature of TPP. Look down at the end of the postings and you will get a link to my "profile" and other features of technorati. I'm a reasonably verbose fellow, but I find it hard to write these "profiles" about myself that all these websites want. I'll have to do a better job, get some pets, give them cute names, post pictures of them, something like that. After all, the point of technocrati is to help you get your blog noticed by others. It lets you know who else is linking to your site. Ultimately, that is the point here in cyberspace--linkage. While it is fun to write a diary, if no one reads it I might as well just scratch it on paper. This experimental foray into web-logging is supposed to help my writing, by getting readers tuned in to what I'm doing. Ultimately, writers are show-offs. We just have to have folks seated and silent and paying rapt attention! Sounds like teaching. Or, at least, an idealized version of teaching. Seated, silent, and paying rapt attention is a rare event in a classroom these days. Speaking of classrooms, I noticed that one of my fellow Muzzle Flashers is a school teacher and has a blog named for her PI character, Bo Fexler. So in the spirit of technoliteratic harmony, I'm adding Bo to my links list. Plus they are fun stories! One of these days I'll have to sort that list of links by categories--it is only going to get longer. I could spend many hours on blogger, tweaking and customizing the look and layout, fiddling with html code and whatnot, giving my site all sorts of style points. Maybe after I get my knee 'scoped I'll be bored enough to do that. I worry I'll spend all my time twiddling with my blog instead of actually writing. Countdown to knee slicing: 5 days. Countdown to summer vacation: 35 days (only 25 work days).

Happy 83rd, Bill!

One of my major inspirations as a writer is my father-in-law, William S. "Bill" Rothwell. He is 83 today--HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Bill was a real-live rocket scientist before he took up novel writing. We use that phrase all the time, "it ain't rocket science," or "smart guy, huh, what are you, a rocket scientist?", or "you oughta be a rocket scientist, kid" or somesuch. Just another bit of cultural detritus, tossed around like "hey, dude" or "my bad" or "whazzup." Think about it a bit, and you realize that rocket scientists are a pretty rare breed. There was a period in history--the mid 60's through Apollo--when rocket scientists and the engineers associated with them were a sort of archetypal American brain-iac. Pressed dark slacks, short sleeve white dress shirts, Brylcreemed hair, slide rule--all these things said "Space Race." After Neil Armstrong, the fickle American public lost interest in rockets, and the end of the Cold War was the final blow. Never mind that a major impetus to the fall of the Soviet Union was their genuine fear of American space technology and its ability--potentially--to defend against the armada of ballistic missiles pointed at U.S. targets. Americans, of course, still launch rockets. Rockets for defense, science research, commercial broadcasting, even an occasional astronaut ride. But the glamour is gone. Nowadays the smart kids work for computer and wireless phone outfits, or biotechnology startups. And, despite having the best universities in the world, the U.S. of A. is no longer the Science & Technology Center of Gravity. Places like Sweden and Korea are now innovation leaders, and this trend will continue. But that is another rant for another time. This post is a tribute to Bill. When he retired from Lockheed, he did something he always wanted to do--write. He wrote a loosely-connected trilogy of science fiction novels exploring a future both promising and terrifying. I think loyal TPP readers should take a virtual jump to Author House Publishing and do a search for William S. Rothwell. You'll find The New Life Clinics, Hide Me in the Grave, and Lethifer. Click the "Add to Cart" button and get to work! I've always had a hankering to write myself, and I always thought it was no more than that, an amateur's hankering. It dawned on me after a while that I would either write or I wouldn't, that one had to DO what one imagined doing. Bill did that. And that was one hell of an inspiration. Thanks, Bill.

On round holes and square pegs

This week I get to participate in one of the most enduring public and political myths--the standardized test. Thousands of citizen-voters believe that exams can tell if a student is learning and if a school is "good." "Good schools" are what everyone wants. Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, moderates, Greens, Independents, etc., they all want "good schools." Since no one has ever bothered to define exactly what a "good school" is, the convenient political solution of "test scores" fills that need and requires no further study or analysis. I love muddle-headedness! I particularly enjoy poorly thought-out answers and knee-jerk responses! I work in an "alternative" school. A silly name, to be sure. We do indeed provide an alternative to the "traditional" high school--smaller classes, more independence, greater accommodations to different learning styles, multiple ways to demonstrate learning, you get the idea. Are we required to administer the state exams? Of course! Do our students do well on them? Typically not. Does this mean they are stupid and we are a shitty school? Of course not. Granted, many of my charges are woefully under-educated despite our best efforts, and I have no doubt that a commitment to higher "standards" would improve things. But such "standards" are arbitrary. Too often, some bureaucrat makes a copy of the Table of Contents of a textbook and declares "here are our standards!" An army of Ph.D.'s in Sacramento can make a list of stuff that a college freshman needs to know to give him a good shot at success in the university setting, but beyond that I'm unconvinced. When this army of "doctors" can tell me what a good citizen is, and how we nurture that, I'll start listening. In the meantime, the taxpayers need to know that millions of their dollars are being flushed down toilets all over California this week. What do you say to that, Ah-nohld?

13 and 11

The Giants finish April at 13 wins and 11 losses (with 3 rain-outs), 1-1/2 games behind the 16-11 AZ 'Snakes. When you go to AZ and lose all three games, you have to figure it is going to hurt you in the standings. I can remember many, many losing Aprils over the years so I suppose I am happy we are over .500. Barry Bonds got zero hits last night but walked 3 times and scored twice. What Bonds does is make the fewest outs. This keeps innings alive and creates scoring opportunities. He "turns the lineup over" is another way to think about it. Outs are the most important thing. Like three strikes, outs are a limit. Each team only gets 27. So making outs is the cardinal sin of baseball, once they are gone the chance to win is gone, too. HRs and RBIs are wonderful of course, but they don't always reflect the relative importance of an individual's contribution to a game. Rickey Henderson and Tim "Rock" Raines were two of the greatest players ever, but they never led the league in slugging. But they did make the fewest outs on their respective teams even though they typically led that team in plate appearances. Their ability to get on base combined with their legendary speed made them invaluable. Someone has to score all those runs your sluggers drive in. Bonds is not just the best slugger, he can do what Raines and Henderson can do as well, get on base and make the offense go. Two players in one! Now if only the Giants could come up with another hitter . . .