Regular Life

Considering yesterday’s gold medal hockey match featured the USA vs. Canada, I found this timely.

Until three weeks ago, I had never been to a hockey game. In fact, besides back in 1980 when the USA defeated the Soviets, I had never watched one at all.

Always anxious for an excuse to take pictures, I snatched up two free tickets to the Allen Americans, a fairly new Dallas Stars farm team. The wife quickly cleared a guys’ night out and I frantically dialed up a couple of local friends. One of them is an avid hockey fan and even has his own skates and stick. Both of them are fellow shutterbugs.

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Thanks to their perch, these photographers at the Dallas White Rock Marathon finish line were about the only things I could see besides the spectators. (click pic to enlarge)

 
Nikon D50
200mm Nikkor manual focus
f/4 (best guess)
1/1600 sec
Manual Exposure

I moved to the Dallas metro area a little more than four years ago. Driving past the behemoth high school football stadiums and listening to horror stories of seven-year-olds suffering broken bones during practice reminds me just how important football is to sports fans in this state. With the undefeated TCU Horned Frogs hailing from just down the road in Forth Worth, and the currently maligned Dallas Cowboys located even closer, it’s difficult to go a day without hearing the sport mentioned.

It should come as no surprise, then, when I hear that Republican Representative Joe Barton, of Texas, is sponsoring a bill to change how the college football champion is crowned. The bill’s co-sponsor is Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, and part of their argument is that teams like the aforementioned TCU do not get a fair shot at the title.

Really? We’re going to ask our elected officials to spend time on this?

Although the bill passed a House subcommittee on Wednesday with bipartisan support, it “still faces steep odds,” according to the Associated Press report.

That’s a relief.

But, still, it’s sad that it took meddling in college football’s business to bring the political parties together. Rep. John Barrow, D-Georgia, said it best in that same AP article, “With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on.”

Here’s hoping that the House subcommittee is the last group to pass this bill.

(set to auto-publish at 8 a.m. CT)

I’m a huge fan of a young woman I’ve never met, and never heard of until Thursday night. Not because she’s a celebrity; not because she’s beautiful (which she definitely is); not because she’s ranked sixth in the world in her sport; not because she’s (almost) famous.

I like Caroline Wozniacki, 19, because she made one of the classiest moves in the history of sports. It’s too bad there’s a sad part to this story.

While up 7-5, 5-0 over opponent Ann Kremer on Thursday, the young Dane simply stopped playing. Why? Caroline had injured her hamstring and, sure she would not be able to compete beyond that match, felt that winning served no purpose. Kremer, who was playing before a home crowd, would have a chance to advance.

What makes this story even better is that her father, Piotr, suggested at 3-0 in the second set that she forfeit the match.

The sad part? When her father spoke to her, microphones overheard their conversation, and gamblers started betting on Kremer for the win. As of Thursday afternoon, the World Tennis Association’s Tennis Integrity Unit was investigating Caroline for betting fraud.

Admittedly, her decision could be looked at as a practical move as much as a selfless one. Regardless, I hope all of this is over by the time you read this and that Caroline Wozniacki will be remembered for her sporting attitude instead of a controversy that never should have been.

Have a nice weekend, all.

Source:
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/blog/busted_racquet/post/Caroline-Wozniacki-s-good-deed-leads-to-WTA-inve?urn=ten,197641

Qatar has replaced child camel jockeys, sometimes no older than four years, with robots. In what began as an effort to appease human rights groups, in fact, the United Arab Emirates also plans to deploy the mechanical riders in place of what advocates consider slaves.

At least one former child jockey, now reduced to the position of stable hand, seemed to be unhappy about this arrangement. I guess when you’re a child you can’t have it both ways — protected and independent at the same time.

The use of a robot jockey still requires a person handling a remote control (and following around the track in an SUV, from what I understand). I have to wonder if the $5500 cost of each robot jockey, and the subsequent maintenance of same, is cheaper than hiring a small adult? Surely in such a country they wouldn’t have to pay a real person very much.

I have no love for horse racing, but it will be interesting to see whether these ‘bots begin riding thoroughbreds (or, in a test run, quarter horses).

National Geographic reported robot camel jockeys as news on Monday because they were first used in competition over the weekend.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0715_050715_robot_jockey.html

The robots were covered by Wired online back in 2005:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/camel.html

Of course, I found out about them from Tuesday’s page of my Uncle John’s Big Bathroom Reader Page-a-Day Calendar. How coincidental is that timing with the robots’ first use in Qatar?

Note: I played with different blog themes over the weekend, and haven’t quite found one that I like yet. I still like the idea of a banner at the top, but I like drop-down menus, too. I just haven’t quite found one that I can slap into place that does all that without having to spend lots of time tweaking the files.

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Oh, yeah, three of our boys are in their third season playing on the same team together.
— mother of a boy on the most recent team to hand Benjamin’s team their heads on a platter

The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
– Shakespeare

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“Daddy, will I get fruit foot again?”

“You mean Fruit by the Foot? I don’t know, maybe.”

Despite his query regarding the post-game snack, Benjamin’s interest in attacking the ball has gone up in direct proportion to the number of games he has played. Well, I suppose not even going out on the field would rate a zero, but it’s close enough to one for my purposes.

My only gripe about his third game is that I missed the entire second half.

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(Note: Those reading “The Keys Are In It” may proceed to Part Twelve, or start over on Part One. I know it’s been a while.)

Ben didn’t hesitate to go out on the field with his teammates during Saturday’s game. He got his foot on the ball a couple of times, but his team was badly over matched by a group that we joked was loaded with first and second graders. Those boys were a head taller and four steps faster than most of ours, and only our one guy who sized up to them made much headway.

All this after I had just told Ben that you don’t have to be the biggest player to be the best at soccer, and that Tatu, one of the greatest indoor soccer players ever, stands about five inches shorter than I (I’m not quite six feet tall).

Oh well. At least they don’t officially keep score.

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JuJu was the toughest runner I ever saw.
(commenter on woopig.net online forums)

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Tatu is… one of the most accomplished indoor soccer players of all time.
(Wikipedia)

Benjamin enjoys soccer practice, but he refused to take the field with his teammates for their first game. Saturday’s impending contest has me a bit on edge.

I’m hoping my son finds a sport he likes, instead of ending up a “one and done” like his old man.

When I was a kid I tried each sport available to grade school children — baseball, basketball, and football. I played one season of each, with actual play time during at least one real game. Sometimes more.

In baseball, I never got a hit. In football, I never scored. In basketball, the same, despite a great screen by my brother (yes, we were on the same team).

Naturally, over the years I have developed wonderful excuses for all of the above.

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Benjamin’s first full day of kindergarten doubled as his first day of soccer practice. Unlike tee ball (which we “volunteered” him for at age three), he eagerly participated. When I wasn’t helping, I was taking pictures, and Shannon sat in a camp chair, busily filling out a stack of forms for Ben’s school.

That morning at the school, Shannon stayed in the cafeteria with a few other parents while children of several grade levels lined up with their classmates.

“Mommy, what are you still doing here?” Ben said.

It seems that our son is not in the separation anxiety camp. (She scooped me on this by adding a comment to an earlier post.)

The funnier part? While in the library for the “Kleenex and Coffee” session after the kids reported to class, Shannon leaned over a kid-sized table to fill out a form. She somehow lost her balance and fell, literally, on her butt, and her feet went up in the air. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there to catch her see it.

I blame it on her heavy purse. Or genetics.