Remember the Armadillo

Information is Power: Google and Wikipedia protest anti-piracy bills

2012-01-18T13:13:00.003-06:00

I don't follow politics real close but yesterday as I looked up something on Wikipedia, I noticed that they had a message saying they would be blacking out the site for a full day in protest to some anit-piracy bills proposed by the US. It was well covered in the news last night as well and now I see that Google is speaking up (along with others). What strikes me more then anything is how powerful these organizations. He who holds the information definitely holds the power.

Let me be upfront in that I signed the petition Google has posted and fully agree that government should not be censoring the internet. That being said, what I find most fascinating in all of this is the impact and reach that these sites have on our lives. It will be interesting to see how many people sign the petition but my guess is that it turns into an unprecedented number that the Senate will have to take quite seriously. Really Google, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, Wikipedia and other have so much information that is relied upon by so many that at in a matter of hours they seem to have seemingly made a huge statement. Imagine the impact if they took more drastic measures. It's almost scary to think of.

Of course we could go back to looking things up in the hard bound encyclopedia, using the newspaper classifieds, and communicating with our friends via phone or snail-mail but who wants to do that. I'm guessing not even the politicians behind these highly scrutinized bills would be in favor of that. Fortunately our 1st amendment rights on the internet will likely stay in tact thanks to Power of Information possessed by these large websites. Let's just hope that as we continue to become more dependent on them, that Google's original "Don't be evil" motto is not forgotten.

Catholic Mass English Translation Changes: The good the bad and the ugly

2012-01-06T22:08:00.004-06:00

Recently the English translation used for the Catholic Mass got a make over. Many of the prayers we Catholics pray together now sound a little different then they have for my entire lifetime. Needless to say this is going to take some getting used to. It's also caused plenty of discussion as to why these changes were made and if they are indeed for the better. After talking about it with my wife and giving it some thought here's the humble opinion of one Catholic dad on the new text we use at each Mass.

The Good:
I think the best thing is that the changes make me think a bit more about what I'm saying. Repeating the same phrases the same way for approximately 30 years has made the words come out almost as easily as breathing and it's easy to not really ponder their meaning. Prayer of course should be a conversation. So changing phrases like "And also with you," to "And with your spirit," has helped me focus on the what I'm saying a bit more which is definitely a good thing.

Also it's been widely said that the new translation of the original Latin text to English is more literal. I don't know Latin so I have to take the experts word for that but being more accurate sounds like a good thing overall. Many of the prayers that are modeled after Bible passages, now match the text we are used to hearing better. I definitely like that. Instead of "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you," we now say "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof" just as centenarian declared to Jesus in Matthew's Gospel. Also, I noticed while watching the Peanuts Christmas special that the prayer we refer to as the Gloria in the Catholic Mass, more closely matches what Linus says as he tells Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about. I remember wondering why the two were so close yet different when I was a kid and now my kids don't have to go through the same confusion :-) Ok that's not a huge deal but it something.

The Bad:
A few of the words might be more accurate but I really don't know what they mean and I doubt the majority of Catholics in the US do either. The most glaring example of this is in the Creed where we now say "consubstantial with the Father." Previously this phrase was "one in being with the Father."

Also, I would argue that just like a good song isn't too specific in it's lyrics in a way that it can speak to wider range of emotions and circumstances, some of the previous and less literal translations were more poetic and thought provoking. As I heard one explanation of the two translations say, they both approached the original text in a different manor.

The Ulgy...well that might be a bit harsh I guess:
So much of the richness of our Catholic Faith lies in the traditions that we follow. In a way it seems almost criminal to change things that have become such a part of our lives. Obviously it's good that I wasn't around for the Vatican II changes as that had to be a huge adjustment for Catholics as they went from having very little part in the Mass and it being all in Latin to partaking more in the prayers as everything was said in English. Overall however, I'm quite certain that the Holy Spirit guided that change just as He has this one. Once we stop stumbling through these responses they will likely add a lot of richness back into the text we pray.

In the end, all of the speculation and discussion certainly seems to be much adu about nothing. It just isn't that big of a deal that were using slightly different words to in the end say basically the same thing. At least it has people talking about the words we pray though and thinking a bit more about their meaning. And for the team being we all get to chuckle a bit as we learn the new words.

Fascination with Sherlock Holmes

2012-01-03T15:33:00.000-06:00

I’ve always been fascinated with Sherlock Holmes. In fact I believe a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (can’t remember the exact name) is one of the only books I’ve ever read from start to finish. Sadly that probably says more about me then the book but the point remains that there is something quite fascinating about a person who is so observant and intelligent that he can see things that others can’t and accurately predict future events with this information. Of course my wife and I had to go see the new movie, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” now that it is in theaters and we just as impressed with this film as we were with the previous Sherlock Holmes film. Apparently we aren’t the only ones as I’ve heard quite a bit of buzz about the movie. Rather than rehash the plot I’d like to take a few lines of text to ask what makes this film and really this fictional character so interesting to people.

I could save my conclusion to this question for the end but what’s the fun in that. In our modern day world we are a very immediate people. Google, Wikipedia and Youtube can tell us information about almost anything we can imagine. It’s truly the information age. I would argue that part of the Sherlock Holmes allure is that he is like a walking encyclopedia in an age where information was not so readily available. Being able to think and solve problems without a computer is kind of becoming a lost art. There is something attractive about that aspect. Could we survive in a Google-free world?

The other aspect that I enjoy however is how Holmes knowledge comes at the price of his ability to enjoy life. He analyzes everything to point where life seems to be a mere game or exercise that he is going through the motions for. While Dr. Watson respects Holmes’s intellectual gifts, it could easily be said that Watson has found a way to enjoy life more and thus possesses something that Holmes cannot grasp. Together they make for quite the dynamic duo that is as entertaining if not more than the overall plot.

Dumbphone or Smartphone?

2011-12-27T11:11:00.002-06:00

After a recent family Christmas party, my wife asked me and a surprising question: "Do you think we should get iPhones?" What surprised me is that she is rarely the sort of person to care much about technology but it was apparent that seeing other family members with all the latest iPads, iPhones and Droids got her wondering if getting one of these devises would make her life easier. "What does an iPhone do?" she inquired.

Basically an iPhone or any Smartphone's big feature is that you have web access from the palm of your hand. This can be quite handy at times for sure but as we discussed some of the features we both came to the conclusion that there isn't any big reason for us to go out and upgrade our current dumbphones. Here's a breakdown of some features that we talked about and why they would be nice but not needed:

24/7 web access.
Pros: never without the internet
Cons: have high-speed internet at the office and home and would typically prefer a laptop and keyboard over using the internet on a phone.
Easily look up addresses and phone numbers while traveling
Pros: Makes this task easy
Cons: Current phones can quickly look things up by texting a name or category along with a zip code or city/state to GOOGLE. And it's free.
Built in camera
Pros: never without a camera (still or video)
Cons: Camera quality and response time is still not as good as the small Canon camera and Sony camcorder that we currently use. So we wouldn't really be replacing these.
Built in GPS
Pros: Never lost and maps are always current.
Cons: Already have a standalone GPS that suites our needs without a subscription fee.
Built in Music Player
Pros: would be nice to always have my iPod with me. And my wife would enjoy this feature as she doesn't have a music player currently.
Cons: Already own my iPod and have it set up with all my music.
Facebook access
Pros: what's not to like there. My wife would especially love this.
Cons: Already get notifications and can post to facebook via tex message for free.

Plus it's nice not worrying about the kids breaking our current phones or someone stealing them. If we went out and got iPhones we probably would need to be a little more careful with them. Also people always talk about the battery life not being great. Add all that up and we still can't justify giving our cell phone company more money for these added features. I'm sure we'll eventually make the jump but we are definitely slow adapters and for now just can't see that one feature we can't live without. Am I missing something?

Jason Marquis: No ace but fills a need

2011-12-23T09:04:00.003-06:00

Let's face it. Everyone would love for the Twins to have found an ace up there sleeve that they could have played next year in their starting rotation, but was never realistically going to happen and it might be for the best. I don't know much about Jason Marquis except for the few articles I've been reading on him since he signed with the Twins, but he obviously is not a flashy pitcher who will rack up the Ks and strike fear into opposing teams. Once you get past that however, I think Twins fans need to take a look at the positive things Jason does bring to the 2012 Twins' team.

He's been seen as an innings machine in the past. With Carl Pavano being the only Twins starter to throw over 200 innings last year, it was an obvious need to find someone who is likely to reach that accomplishment. The best thing about this is it keeps the bullpen fresher so in a way the Twins just upgraded their bullpen by finding a way to have them throw less innings.
The bullpen is also upgraded due to the fact that Brian Duensing will be moved from their from the starting rotation. He likely will be an improvement over a lot of the pitchers who were their last season.
Marquis is also a guy that sounds like a good character guy. Of course this is overstated often about players and we have no way to know how true it is, but he sounds to be a student of the game (very important for pitching) and one who gives 100% playing through pain at times and not making excuses. Last years team lacked leadership some have hinted and you want people like this in any business or team. I'm fairly comfortable saying that Jason will be good in the clubhouse and especially for the younger pitchers.
The price is right. I don't like the Twins self imposed salary crap more then anyone else but given the financial constraints they were working in, they didn't have cash to spend on a huge strikeout starting pitcher. 3 million for one year won't break the bank and let's be honest. A lot of things have to break right for the Twins to be in contention this year. It's not the time to tie up a lot of money in a long term deal for a pitcher. That would likely handicap them moving forward.

Pitching is always a tricky thing to predict. Unless you have Johan Santana or Mariano Rivera it's hard to know what you are going to get. Francisco Liriano is still the Twins best shot at a true ace and while I highly doubt that will happen, he was actually a pretty decent pitcher in 2010. Who knows how things will shake out this year but I'm actually more confident in Jason Marquis at this point so that itself is a good thing. Let's cut the guy a little slack. This could tern out to be another unspectacular but useful signing.

Jason Kubel...the next David Ortiz?

2011-12-19T10:20:00.002-06:00

It now sounds official that Jason Kubel has signed a deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Reports are saying he has a two year 15 million deal. I'm not real knowledgeable in analyzing numbers to say if a player is worth a certain amount but this is one player that I think the Twins will regret loosing in much the same manor as when they lot Ortiz.

I've heard a lot of people talk about how Kubel is just an average outfielder and should be easy to replace. I think the problem is average is not always as easy to find as some would think. Also consider that Kubel was likely one of the best hitters on the team. Despite his injury shortened year in 2011, he still managed to show that he had the most power on the team (outside of Jim Thome of course) and he could hit for a decent average too. I know the Twins didn't especially like his defense and Target field is certainly a better place for someone with a little more speed but Kubel has continued to improve offensively each year and I can definitely see him putting up some huge numbers for Arizona. For a Twins team that is short on power, loosing him is a tough pill to swallow. Yeah they get a draft pick and yes they did sign Josh Willingham but to me loosing both Cuddyer and Kubel makes that pickup a net loss. Not to mention it gives the team less depth. The argument can be made that they should use the money saved to go after pitching and that's fair but it's pretty sad that this team has decided it "has to cut salary" and as a result failed to bring back one of Cuddyer or Kubel.

In all fairness I suspect that Kubel wanted out as Target Field was not kind to his numbers which will look even better in Arizona. Get ready in a year or two to hear about the one that got away this year. It won't be Cuddyer or Nathan. People will be talking about Jason Kubel (the new Ortiz) and say "Remember when he used to play in Minnesota..sure would be nice to have someone like that on the team."

Twins 2012 season outlook

2011-12-09T09:12:00.003-06:00

Baseball is a funny game. In 2011 the Minnesota Twins ended up a single loss short of 100 (63-99) which has many fans, writers and bloggers thinking that the stars will have to all align just right for the Twins to have any chance of fielding a playoff caliber team in 2012. And of course it's hard to argue that point. So far the moves the Twins have made have been small ones and while most people seem to think they are good ones, you would be crazy to think that signing Jamey Carroll will turn the Twins into a 90 win team.

That being said I think many people are forgetting something. As recently as 2010 the Twins actually won 94 games (94-68) and that team features many of the same players who were part of the 2011 disaster. I started thinking about this the other day and wondered if maybe the Twins are closer to being a contender then most people are giving them credit for. So what were the big differences between 2010 and 211?

Health -- Everyone on the 2011 Twins team seemed to be injured at some point. While Justin Morneau was injured for much of 2010, he was joined on the DL by Joe Mauer and pretty much everyone else in 2011.
Bullpen -- It went from one of the best to one of the worst. This is the area that really did change personnel wise between the two years. I fully believe the front office would have made some trades to improve it in 2011 but the team got off to such a terrible start that they never had a chance.
Depth -- The Twins just didn't have any young players that could step in and play at a major league level in 2011 and this hurt them.
Starters -- While the group of starters was basically the same, they sure looked like a different group. Especially Francisco Liriano who showed glimpses of being an ace in 2010 and looked like a guy who could loose his rotation spot in 2011.
Defense -- Blame it on the lack of depth perhaps which was showcased due to the injuries but it's hard to defend the 2011 defense. Really it wasn't spectacular in 2010 either but it was at least average.

So looking at this list a few things are obvious. As most people have correctly stated, the Twins need their star players to stay healthy. This takes some luck but can probably be said of any team that is not the Yankees. Next the Twins need more depth and this is the issue they've seemingly been addressing the most this off-season. Finally they need better pitching. The bullpen needs to be improved (still waiting on that) but more then that they need their core starting pitchers who will remain mostly the same as the past few years, to bounce back. Someone needs to have a big season in that rotation.

So I guess the in a way stars kind of do have to align but they've done it before and I for one wouldn't be surprised to see that happen. This main group has done it before and looking back over the past several seasons, 2011 seems to be the year that is unusual. For sure they still need some pitching help but so far I'm impressed with the minor improvements they've made. Don't be shocked it this team can return to being a contender without any big moves.

Sony vs Canon: Default Shutter Speed Makes a Difference

2010-01-02T13:45:00.005-06:00

So you want to get a small camera to take some great pictures of the kids and around the house. What brand of camera is best for you? There is a lot of information out there about camera specs and image quality but unfortunately they all seem to miss a very obvious difference between camera brands when it comes to the point and shoot variety. And believe me, it makes a huge difference in how your pictures turn out.

The difference that no one is talking about is the shutter speed that is used when firing the flash (aka indoors). Now don't let me scare you away by using the technical term "shutter speed". This is simply the length of time that the camera let's light through the lens while taking a picture. Think of it like the amount of time the door to your house is open when it is really warm or cold outside. The longer you keep the door open, the more outside air comes in the house. Similarly when you take a picture the camera opens the shutter (door) letting in light and the longer it's open the more light comes in.

Sony cameras generally use a shutter speed of 1/40 of a second while Canon cameras will normally use 1/60 of a second. That 1/20 of a second difference can be the difference between a blurry and crisp image. I've used both brands and looked at lots of pictures and the difference is quite obvious. While both brands will create a crisp image of a subject that is sitting still, things change when trying to capture that perfect shot of a child running through your house (or even just turning his head). In cases where your subject is not still the faster shutter speed does a much better job of not blurring the subject.

I've used a Sony Cyber-shot DCS-W80 for the last two years and have ended up with blurry pictures in these instances countless times. All of the high ISOs and Image Stabilization in the world won't make you subject stop moving while your shutter is open and that's where my new Canon PowerShot SC1200is Digital Elph really comes out a winner. With the Sony I would probably only get one good indoor picture out of every five I took and with the Canon it's more like 4 out of every 5 which translates to a lot more memories captured. I've looked at dozens of pictures through on-line photo sites from other models of cameras in these brands and this key difference is consistent on all of them.

This isn't to say that the Sony isn't without it's merits. In face if my subject is stationary, I actually think the the Sony W80does the better job when using a flash. On the flip side of this shutter speed coin you see, the Sony is able to let in more natural light which makes flash pictures look more natural and not so harsh. Really it's too bad that neither camera gives you the flexibility to change this setting. Even the scene modes are no help as Sony point and shoot cameras typically don't have a sports or kids and pets scene setting (which would likely increase the shutter speed) and unless you slow your shutter speed way down (to the point where you need a tripod) the canon has no way to lower this setting.

So what brand of camera to get really should depend on what or who you will be taking the majority of your picture of. If you're taking still life images or pictures of people standing there smiling then going with Sony might be your best bet. But if your going to be taking pictures of kids playing then do yourself a favor and get a little Canon camera. You'll get a lot more clear pictures which is really the most important quality of your pictures anyway. I mean who really cares about minute differences in image quality or color if your image isn't sharp.

Giving thanks to God for His mysterious ways

2008-12-30T10:13:00.003-06:00

This morning my wife and I awoke to find a message on our answering machine telling us that her uncle Dan was getting a new heart. He's been waiting for a heart transplant for quite some time now and we had been told that there was a good chance it would happen over the holidays. I can imagine the emotions that he must be feeling this morning as he goes in to receive a new heart. It is definitely a scary thing, as no one knows how his body will handle a new heart. Still this news is an answer to prayer.

The strange thing is that someone's life had to end tragically for Dan to receive this new heart. One person's bad news is another person's good news. Life is definitely not fair, but what an awesome gift he has received. As I say a prayer for Dan this morning that the surgery goes well, I also offer a little prayer for the person who is giving Dan this gift and that person's family who must be grieving right now.

Listening to this morning's daily Scripture readings, I thought it was appropriate that they dealt with giving thanks to God. The Psalm talked about this directly, and the Gospel reading was actually about the woman named Anna who had waited for years to see the promised Messiah. Upon meeting the baby Jesus, it says she gave glory to God. I'm sure it was not easy waiting for eight years just like it hasn't been easy for Dan to wait for this new heart. I do see a difference in Dan however as he has found a new zeal for life. Uncertainty and practicing patience is never fun, but God does use it to help us grow. Amazingly God always finds a way to take our pain and suffering and bring something good out of it.

Voting for Life

2008-11-03T10:52:00.004-06:00

You know what’s great about our country is that when this election is over in a couple days we’ll all still be friends. Obviously there are some very differing opinions on who the best candidate is to lead our country and I’m glad people feel open enough to share there views with everyone. With that being said and having read many of your emails, I’d like to add my thoughts to conversation.

I’ve always considered myself pro-life since my early upbringing and I think much of that can be attributed to growing up in a family that cherishes and loves life so much. A year ago when the campaigns were just getting started, I questioned many of the same social justice issues that have been brought up by some of you and wondered if these could out way the importance of the abortion issue. Then my wife and I conceived our first child and I saw his heart beating in an ultrasound when he was only three weeks old. As the pregnancy continued my wife and I got to see and feel him kicking and waving….hiccuping and definitely growing inside her. Then the morning of September 8 we got to hold our baby boy for very first time. I know many of you have experienced this feeling before but what an amazing moment that was. It was at this moment and in countless others since then as I’ve stared into the eyes of my child, that I knew without a doubt that the greatest cruelty or injustice possible was that we as a society would turn our heads and let millions of innocent children die.

Think about it this way….You see two people on the street. One is a child being brutally murdered. The other can be a person facing whatever other evil or social justice issue you can think of. If you can only save one which would save? Looking at it this way makes the answer blatantly obvious to me.

Recently Dr. Alveda C. King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, stated that, “The fight against abortion is a new frontier in the Civil Rights Movement…We are not following Martin’s dream if we do not stand up for the voiceless.” I wholeheartedly agree with her and truly feel that abortion is the civil rights issue or out times. There are many issues that affect us more directly as individuals and perhaps that is why many people choose to give more importance to them. As a society though, there can be nothing more terrible then the thousands of babies who are legally slaughtered each day. Whatever struggles and injustices my son will face in this life at least he will get to experience them. Friends and family, the way I see it the war overseas is terrible and our economy is a problem, but let’s not forget that there is a bigger war taking place right here in our own nation. Sacrifices need to be made but innocent children should never be the price.

So I guess you can probably guess who I’ll be voting for tomorrow. Obama and McCain are so far apart on the abortion issue that it’s not even close decision. I’ll gladly cast my vote for the millions like my son who don’t get a say in the matter. I’m voting for life.

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
-- Mother Teresa

Don’t dunk your remote…that’s better for milk and cookies

2008-07-30T13:40:00.001-05:00

Yeah, everybody knows that electronics and water don’t mix. Sure if your camera or cell phone get splashed it’s not a big deal but actually dunking such a device into a glass of water is definitely pushing things. Well a couple nights ago my subconscious mind decided to test logic in what has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.

That night I laid in bed watching the news or a Mythbusters’ rerun or something else. I can’t really be sure cause at some point I fell asleep with the TV on. Hours later a loud commercial brought out of a deep sleep and I realized that I had forgotten to turn off the tube. Still half asleep I fumbled for the remote and pressed a number of buttons until at last my figures found the power button and the TV turned off. Now in a darkened bedroom I reached over to set the TV remote down on my nightstand.

I could have felt the top of the nightstand and gently set the remote down but this is where my subconscious deemed it a perfect time to see if a remote controller can float in a glass of water. As the remote slipped into the water sitting by my bed I remember thinking, “You idiot, you just put the remote in your water glass,” but I was so tired and out of it that it still took me what seemed like forever to fish it out of the glass. I immediately wondered if I had broke it but left it on the nightstand till morning.

Now all this made me quite thirsty and having already done one stupid thing I began to ponder another. “Probably not a good idea to drink water that’s had a remote sitting in it,” I told myself. But in the end my thirst got the better of me so instead of getting up and retrieving a new glass, I quickly guzzled the tainted water down and went back to sleep.

Well morning came and remote was still wet. I shook my head as I looked at how the remote would have barely fit into the glass. Nothing to do now but to take the batteries out of it (better late then never) and let it dry out for the rest of the day. Now a few days removed from the incident the good news is that I’ve suffered no ill effects from drinking the water after dunking the remote in it. The bad news is the remote has become a paperweight with buttons. So that ends my scientific experiment of dunking a remote in water and it’s safe to say that it’s still just as bad of an idea as it’s always been. Best to leave the dunking to milk and cookies.

Too many outfielders: A good problem for the Twins

2008-07-29T09:34:00.001-05:00

Denard Span has created a nice problem for the Minnesota Twins. He’s played so well since last being called up to the majors that when Michael Cuddyer get's off the disabled list the Twins will have some tough decisions to make on who get’s to play in the outfield.

Span has easily been one of the biggest reasons for the teams recent success. He’s been an on base machine and has really been taking good at bats now at the top of the line up. Additionally he’s played spectacular defense taking away plenty of hits and saving some big runs. Watching a game with Detroit announcers a few weeks back they raved on and on about how much ground the Twins cover in the outfield between Span and Carlos Gomez. On one ball hit to the gap they actually declared it a double and then Span ended up catching it. Needless to say only a fool would send him back down to the minors and it’s becoming very apparent that he needs to be in the starting lineup.

The problem is that the lineup could really use another good right-handed bat with some pop and Cuddyer fits that bill nicely when he’s healthy. He’ll definitely be starting again which means somebody is out of a starting job. Some have suggested that Delmon Young should be the odd man out but he has actually been hitting well now despite a rough start to the season and like Cuddyer provides a right handed bat that can drive the ball. The more realistic option that has been discussed would be demoting Gomez in center field. He’s struggled big time lately and could use more work in the minors. The issue is that he’s arguably can have the biggest impact on the team if he works through his offensive slump and as stated above having him and Sapn in the outfield means not much hits the ground. Of course the other option is to use Cuddyer at DH but there’s not much time for him there as Jason Kubel and Craig Monroe are already splitting time there.

Some people have also suggested that the Twins try to trade one of their outfielders but I don’t see that as likely. All of the them are young and don’t have much of a track record so I doubt they’d get much back. Cuddyer is the exception but having been injured most of the year he’s not going anywhere either. The truth is I think they are better off with all of them anyway.

So what’s my solution? It’s actually pretty simple. Shift Cuddyer back to third base for the rest of the season. Contrary to popular opinion he never was quite that bad over there when they played him there previously and I can’t imagine he’ll be any worse defensively then Mike Lamb. This would solve a lot of problems as it would give the Twins an upgrade offensively at third with a canon of an arm and in my opinion fields the best possible lineup. Cuddyer probably prefers to play right field but he seems like a team player who would do what’s necessary for the betterment of team. Of course injuries happen and if someone get’s hurt then he’s ready to step in. It’s not like Brian Buscher has done that bad of job at third but somebody has to go to the bench. It’s definitely a good problem to have and with all these guys being so young sure makes the future exciting to think about.

Baptism and Original Sin

2008-07-28T11:28:00.006-05:00

Recently my wife and I took a Baptism class through our local church and unfortunately we left wondering just how much we could trust the deacon who lead it. He helps with most of the Masses and activities in the parish and listening to his homilies he's always seemed like he knows his stuff, but as he lead the class he laid out a very different view of Baptism and Original Sin then what I was familiar with. He said that Vatican II changed the way we understand Original Sin and that we needed to get the idea of our child's sole being stained with it, as portrayed in the old Baltimore Catechism, out of our head. To quote the handout material he gave us....

Modern theology defines original sin as follows;
"Original sin is the condition of being born into a sin filled world."
A. It is not a stain on the innocent child's soul.
B. The following can counteract the negative things in our world.
FAMILY
LOVE
CHURCH/FAITH

He expounded on this saying that Baptism is mostly about starting a faith journey and said that there was a big long document on Baptism that came out of Vatican II and goes into detail on this. To a degree this makes sense to me, but if this is the new official definition of original sin then what does it really mean when we say that Mary was conceived Immaculately (without Original Sin)? She most definitely was born into "a sin filled world." Also if original sin is diminished this way it also seems to diminish the whole sacrament of Baptism and ultimately the concept of our redemptions.

What really made me question the authenticity of what this deacon was saying though was that when one woman at the class asked the deacon what would happen to a baby who died without being Baptized, he told her that the churches "official stance" is that the child is completely innocent and would go straight to heaven. It may seem like nitpicking but salvation is a pretty important matter and what he said seemed to fly directly in the face of what I've read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church so I looked it up and it pretty clearly states in so many words that we have every reason to hope in God's Mercy for such a child but we can't know for sure.

This all lead me to our main concern which was how soon we need to have our child Baptized. We did ask the deacon and he said there is no rush or recommended time table. In fact they only do Baptisms twice a month at our church due to the size of the parish. This sounded like good news to us as we've asked my brother to be the Godfather but he is going to be studying in Europe this August through December so will most likely be gone for the first few months of our baby's life. We would love for him to be able to participate in the Baptism and think it would mean a lot to him so it would be great to have the baby Baptized in December when he gets back. At the same time we want to make sure we are putting our baby's salvation ahead of what would be nice for us.

With all this confusion I turned to my Great Aunt who is Notre Dame Sister and has been involved in Catholic education for many years. She was the perfect person to talk to as she teaches a similar class at her parish every month and has dealt with all of these issues. She told me that she always explains Original Sin this way; She takes off her glasses and tells people that she has poor vision and that this poor vision is something she inherited from her parents. She didn’t do anything wrong to merit her poor eyesight but it’s just something she was born with. Now she says thanks to modern wonders she can use eyeglasses and which help her see clearly. She still has the same genes but thanks to the glasses she doesn’t have to suffer the effects of bad eyesight that were passed down to her.

This analogy made a lot of sense to me as it’s easy to see relate her inherited poor vision to the original sin and her glasses to Baptism. My aunt went on to tell me that our deacon was partially correct in that we are born into a sinful world and baptism helps us counter that, but she said a better definition for Original Sin is that it is simply our inherited tendency towards sin. While we are all born good and innocent we do inherit this tendency from our first parents’ sin. In a way we our soul is stained though not in an evil way. Through Baptism we receive grace to counter this tendency towards sin and become a child of God.

Now as far as when we should Baptize our child, my great aunt explained to me that while the Catholic Church can’t declare for a fact what happens to a child that dies prior to being Baptized, the Church does teach that there are three ways we can be Baptized. The most common is by water but lesser known ways include Baptism by blood (as when someone is martyred) and Baptism by desire (which is when a person wishes to be Baptized but dies prior before they can be). It would only make sense that this Baptism by desire would apply if a child passes away who’s parents desired Baptism for that child. With that in mind she didn’t see any reason why waiting for my brother to be there would be a problem as long as our baby is healthy.

All this has really made me look long and hard at something I’ve taken for granted most of my life. I’ve always seen Baptism as something that was important but never really stopped to ponder what it really theologically speaking was about. It makes so much more sense now and I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about my Faith. Hopefully as our child grows up my understanding about my Faith can also continue to grow.

Midnight Visitor

2008-06-26T08:36:00.003-05:00

A few nights ago my wife and I were both awakened shortly before midnight by someone knocking on our door. They rapped it twice and then rang our doorbell. Our little dog heard that and started barking like crazy. Now we are still fairly new to our area and don't really know anyone who would come to visit in the middle of the night unannounced so I grabbed a baseball bat we had in the bedroom and stumbled still half-asleep towards our bedroom door. Then my wife mentioned, "Maybe you should put some pants on before you go down there," as I was just in my boxers and a t-shirt. So I garbed a pair of jeans and through them on. I opened the bedroom door and started towards the front door. Like an idiot turned on the main light right away so I couldn't see anything outside till I opened the door. No one was there though. Our mystery visitor was gone. The dog and I went outside and looked around but the neighborhood was silent and no lights could be seen except the street lights. My wife said she did see a car driving up the street from our place while I was headed to the front door so maybe that was the person. Hopefully it was just someone who had the wrong house number and knocked on our door by accident. Just to be safe though, I called the local police and reported it. Seems unlikely that a burglar would ring the bell unless he thought the house was vacant and was just checking first. Probably more likely was some young kids looking for trouble.

First Experiences with my Unborn Son

2008-06-06T16:30:00.005-05:00

I've always been pro-life but somehow experiencing my wife's pregnancy with our first child has made me a much more adamant defender of the unborn children's right to life. It was so amazing to see our baby's first ultrasound at only 6 weeks into the pregnancy. I wasn't expecting to see really anything much so early on but surprised that I could easily make out were the head was even though it wasn't fully developed. What really made me stop and marvel however, was seeing our baby's heart pulsating on the monitor clear as day. I just couldn't get over that the small beating heart was my child complete with my DNA. It was really one of the most amazing moments of my life.

Since then we've had multiple ultrasounds and found out that we are having a baby boy. Somehow it never ceases to amaze me as I see my son and hear his heart beating, what a little miracle he is. It's just an awesome feeling to know that this little person who is waving his tiny fingers and moving around will be such a large part of my life. I look at his face and wonder if he has my ears or my wife's eyes. Just recently I've started to feel him move. My wife has felt him move for probably over a month now and after many attempts with my hand on her tummy, I finally got to feel him as well. I was expecting the first time I felt him he would just feel like a little indigestion but instead I felt a really big kick almost like my wife had the hiccups; Just another incredible sign of the life inside her.

After all of these experiences with our unborn baby it's become even more clear to me that abortion kills innocent children. How can people say it is abuse to hurt a child after he or she is born but at the same time ok to kill that same child while in it's mother's womb? Where a person is located doesn't make that person any less of a person. Some argue that while in the womb the baby is relying on the mother for survival. To that I would say that a 3 year old child is just as reliant on his or her parents and home to survive so that doesn't change the fact that the unborn baby is a person. Other's will bring up that women should have a choice if they want a child and of course the truth of the matter is that they do. The choice should be made before the baby is even conceived and even if the parents aren't ready to have a child they still would always have the option to put their baby up for adoption.

This all seems so obvious to me now and yet apparently many people in our society see it quite differently. You simply cannot tell me that my son, still in the womb, is any less of person now then he will be when he is born. Believe me he moves when he hears loud sounds at sporting events and has capacity of all his senses. How can people say it would be ok to kill him? Mother Teresa often said that, "The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion," and thanks to my unborn son I now fully understand what she means. Nothing could be more wrong then if I as this baby's parent didn't allow him to live. I know many people face less then ideal circumstance when faced with unplanned pregnancy's but if you are considering an abortion as way out of a rough situation, make sure you stop and think about what the procedure actually does. Giving life to your child is one of the greatest gifts you could ever give. Choose life! Choose love!

My Baby Boy

Thoughts on MLB using Instant Replay

2008-05-30T13:41:00.003-05:00

Just read an article on ESPN.com stating that "Replay is coming," to Major League Baseball soon. In general I don't want to see instant replay in baseball. Yes, sometime the umps get the call wrong and it might even cost a teams a game here or there but in general I bet they get 99 percent of the calls right. I remember when instant replay came to the NFL for the first time and it really slowed things down. Granted it's come along way in football and is tolerable now with coaches only getting a couple of challenges a game but the bottom line is there is no need for regularly using replay in baseball. The thing is one or two bad calls over 162 regular season games really aren't going to make that big of a deal in the long run for baseball. Football's regular season on the other hand is made is made up of 16 games so a single bad call can have a much greater effect on the standings. The one exception I would make is that replay would be good to have in the baseball playoffs. Now with the way things are set up with the Wild Card being added, the first series in particular is a best of 5 and one bad call definitely makes a big deal in a short series like that. I looked to see if the poll on ESPN gave an option for just having replay in the post season but surprisingly it's not an option. If it's an all or nothing deal I say keep replay out of Baseball. Any avid fan can tell you that the ump is usually right on anyway plus the great thing about baseball is that it's very much like life. Sometimes life isn't always fair and that's ok. Sure the best teams usually come out on top but I'm glad that there is the human (and imperfect) element to the game. Otherwise why games could be won on paper and we all know that's not true...just ask the Detroit Tigers.

American Idol judges got it wrong

2008-05-21T08:18:00.003-05:00

Last night's final competition between David Cook and David Archuleta left me scratching my head and wondering if the producers of the show aren't trying to sway the vote towards Archuleta. All three judges seemed to concur that David Archuleta was the winner of the night and should win the competition but I completely disagree. Don't get me wrong, Archuleta has a very good voice and did well last night, but to me David Cook showed more versatility, artistry and emotion and I didn't think it was even particularly close. Simon Cowell may not have thought Cook's second song was in the spirit of the finnally but I thought it was one of his strongest songs of the competition and think it would be an instant hit on the radio. It was nice that on a song he got to choose himself, he picked something more upbeat instead of the usual slow ballad about being on top of the world. What surprised me is Cowell is normally one to respect people trying to do something different and less predictable. On the final song, all three of the judges agreed that Cook and chosen the wrong song to end on but again I felt it was one of his strongest and most emotionally packed songs of the season...the perfect way to end.

Then we had the judges praising David Archuleta who to me sounded exactly the same on all three of his songs. To be fair it's a good sound but we've been hearing it all season. Plus, the first song he performed had already been done splendidly in a previous season by Clay Akin and he performed it similarly so it wasn't exactly original. Then Archuleta ended the show with the song "Imagine" which he had done previously this season very well. In fact it was arguably his best song the first time he sang it so it's hard to improve on that. All in all it was just nothing new from Archuleta and if the performances from the two Davids predict what kind of albums they will make it was clear to me that Cook is going to have more hit songs.

Maybe that's the reason the producers and judges seemed to be pushing for Archuleta to win. Win or loose both contestants will produce a high selling record just due to their success on American Idol but I do see Archuleta's winning the show helping his career more then it would help Cook. I think David Cook has the voice and originality to make a lot of really good albums even if he had been voted off the show before now. On the other hand, winning the competition could help David Archuleta's "one style" of song have a longer run of success and maybe give him a more hit records so in a way he needs to win more. That's not to say that he couldn't grow as an artist but he definitely hasn't shown the ability to do that much on this season of Idol. So tonight we'll find out who the winner is. I'm pulling for Cook and according to the results on dialidol.com the rest of the country might agree with me. Maybe it's just to spite the judges but I think David Cook deserves it.

The Tale of Two Tables

2008-05-16T09:29:00.002-05:00

Yesterday my wife and I were helping her mother get ready for a rummage sale. Her mother had talked to her parish priest about borrowing a couple of old tables that the church would lend out to people. He was fine with that but was going to be gone so he said that he’d just leave the padlock open on the shed where they are kept and we could lock it up after we got them. The job of picking up the two tables was given to me and my brother-in-law so we took a truck over to the church. It seemed like such a simple task but we were soon to discover otherwise.

First problem we ran into was that the padlock was locked so we had no way to get in. Fortunately a couple of lady’s we new from when we grew up there were in the church decorating it so we explained our situation to them and asked if they new the combination to the padlock or where we could find it. They figured we would need to get it from one of the people who take care of the lawn since the shed was were the mower was kept. So we called the person who they thought might now it. He was sleeping but I talked to his wife and she said we really would need to get it from his sister but she didn’t have her phone number so she said we’d have to call her mom to get the phone number. I thanked her and called her mother and did my best to explain our situation as simply as possible. I would have probably been a bit suspicious had someone told me they were so and so’s son who’s mother-in-law had talked to the priest about getting some tables but the shed was locked so could she give me the number of the person who could give me the combination???....Just your typical phone call you know. Amazingly the lady totally trusted me and told me that she actually knew the combination and so she gave it to me. So I thanked her and went back to the shed with my brother-in-law full of hope that our mission was almost completed. But alas, the combination didn’t work.

We started trying similar combinations hoping that the lady just had one of the numbers wrong. Finally I tried swapping the first and last number and finally the lock opened. Now to load up the tables and be merrily on our way. As the light crept into the shed a feeling of despair came over our faces though as there were no tables to be seen. Someone else must have taken them and locked the shed up. We figured there wasn’t much we could do at this point but wanted to cover all of our bases so we checked some storage rooms in the church basement and upon not finding any were about to leave when one of the lady’s decorating the church ran into us again and asked if we got everything. When we explained our plight to her she mentioned to us that she thought her husband had a couple of old tables in his shed which we could borrow. Oh the joy’s of living in a small town. She called him up and told us he would meet us at his shed and directed us there.

Now this shed her husband had was no ordinary structure. I was expecting a little garage structure like the ones you can buy from a home improvement store but the reality was that his shed looked more like an airplane hanger then a small garage. It was literally filled with old tractors, engines, and every part and piece of equipment you could imagine. The guy who met us there backed out a gator and made some room for us to get inside. Sure enough, there were two tables that would finally complete our task. We loaded them in our truck thinking we were just about on our way but the guy asked us to come back as he wanted to show us something. He asked if we had ever heard of a hit and miss engine. “Sure, I’ve got one in that truck,” my brother-in-law said with a grin. Then the guy (who really was quite nice) started up a small engine he had on a cart and explained to us how it worked with two flywheels and didn’t need any sparkplugs. It was kind of a neat thing to see but it soon went from just looking at this engine to a full-blown tour and history lesson of every tractor in the shop. It was pretty cool when the guy turned on the lights and the whole shed lit up one light after another with some old-time 40’s sounding easy listening music starting up over our heads. Almost felt like we were in an old-time movie. It turned into a movie that could use some major editing though and after listening to a half dozen tractors run we told the guy that we’d love to stay there longer but that we really needed to be on way. He proceeds to show us one more and then finally we escaped.

When we got back to the house were the sale was going to be a good couple hours after we had left, my mother-in-law asked what had taken us so long and said we were in trouble. “You don’t know that half of it,” my brother-in-law said. Getting those two tables had turned into quite the adventure….and tomorrow we get to take them back.

A Game to Remember

2008-05-12T09:52:00.003-05:00

I don’t get to go to many Twins games but Friday night my mother-in-law got my wife and me tickets to watch the Minnesota Twins host the Boston Redsox at the Metrodome and what a game it turned out to be. It was special to us since we are expecting our first child so this was technically our baby’s first Twins’ game. I think it’s safe to say our baby is a Twins fan and a good luck charm. At first things looked pretty good for the Twins as they got out to an early lead. Boof Bonser couldn’t hold it though and ended up giving the lead back. He didn’t pitch as bad as his line of 6 runs in 4 plus innings would indicated but in the end it just wasn’t good enough. It seemed like there were plenty of little things (like batter reaching on a strikeout that Joe Mauer couldn’t find) that prolonged innings for him so that was too bad. Good teams like Boston usually take advantage of things like that and they did.

“Oh well,” I figured. At least it had been an exciting game. Plus we had decent seats down the first base line except for the incredible number of people who don’t understand the idea of only leaving or returning to their seats between innings. One gal in front of us apologized at least 4 or 5 times for having to stand up to let people by her during the game. It really wasn’t her fault of course but was nice of her to say. Things did get exciting in our area as the t-shirt the mascot shoots into the stands between innings landed just out of my reach a row behind me. Then I had an even better shot at catching a foul ball a couple innings later. Matt Tolbert lined one our way and I stood up and reached out both hands to pull it in. Instead of the ball I got the person’s hand who was sitting in front of me. He had stuck his hand up at the last minute otherwise I would have had a nice souvenir for our baby’s first game.

Once the seventh inning stretch came we decided to go get some food before they closed up the vending stands and we ended up walking around the concourse all the way to centerfield. We figured we might as well watch the last couple of innings from out there so spread out in what seemed to be our own personal section which was really kind of nice. Then came the bottom of the ninth with the Twins still down by a run. Delmon Young led off the inning. He had nearly scored to tie the game a few innings prior only to get thrown out at the plate on a close play. Once again he got on base with a sharp single to center. Next up was Matt Tolbert. I knew we weren’t going to get ball from him where we were sitting now but still felt a little uneasy when I saw him lay down a sacrifice bunt. He did it well but next up was Adam Evertt who even with a couple of nice hits early seemed unlikely to get a hit off of Redsox closer Jonathan Papelbon. Sure enough he popped out almost immediately leaving the fate of the game in the hands of the exciting yet young Carlos Gomez. Young stole third meaning all we needed was a base hit to tie the game up and Gomez took some tough pitches that early this year he would have swung at and ended up walking. Then he stole second putting us into position to win the game on a base hit. Mike Lamb came to the plate and looked overmatched on the first two pitches. My wife was unfamiliar with Lamb since he’s a new player on the team and asked if he was good. My look told her otherwise but after fowling off a couple of pitches he dumped a 1-2 pitch down the left field line for a walk of base hit. The dome went pretty crazy for a couple of minute and we gave each other a big high five and hug as the Twins celebrated on the field.

This was easily the most memorable Twins game I’ve seen in person and one I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. It was interesting to me that the come back and even most of the earlier runs came from the bats of the new Twins’ players. Tonight as Minnesota fans made some memories with the new Twins’ players we made some of our own with our newest addition. Definitely will make for some good memories to tell our child down the road who I’m sure will be a Twins’ fan as well.

Saltwater Shower

2008-05-07T08:31:00.003-05:00

Gotta mention something funny that to happened to me this morning. My wife thinks I'm going crazy but I tell you my shower water tasted like salt. Now like my wife you are probably wondering why I was tasting the shower water in the first place but I often rinse my mouth with water in the shower for whatever reason and this morning it tasted extremely salty. I turned it off when I noticed this and jumped out to check the sink faucet in our vanity and that water tasted fine (both hot and cold) so I tried the shower again and sure enough I still was bathing in salt water. I tried to determine if it was the hot or cold water and while I didn't turn it to just hot, I did try the cold and it still tasted like the ocean. At this point I decided to just get through my shower and figured afterwards I could always sprinkle a little pepper on my head and call it a day. By the time I rinsed my hair however the salty taste was gone. "Maybe the saltwater came from the ocean" my wife said with a smile. My guess is that it has something to do with our water softener which last I checked actually needed more salt added. Hopefully it's nothing serious and I won't be tasting salt water in my shower again anytime soon.

Baseball: It’s all relative

2008-04-16T13:42:00.000-05:00

After suffering through two devastating losses by the Minnesota Twins the last couple nights, I’ve tried to step back and look at the big picture. A month ago before the season started most people would probably have looked at the upcoming two game series against the Detroit Tigers and figured they would be tough games to win. Not that you ever want to expect to loose but the Tigers are clearly the better team on paper and loosing two games in a row to them in April shouldn’t be that devastating. It’s all relative though as before playing the Twins, the Tigers had the worst record in baseball and looked like a team the Twins should be able to take advantage of. Thus my expectations were raised going into the series and the defeats are harder to take.

It’s also worth noting that had we won those two games (and we nearly did both nights) then the majority of Twin’s fans would be declaring this team was on a roll as our bat’s were really coming alive. And they definitely were as Joe Mauer broke out of his mini slump along with the rest of the team as the Twins scored 14 runs between the two games. Instead of being excited about our newfound offense though the main thing I find myself dwelling on is how the wheels came off our bullpen who surrendered leads in the eighth inning each night. Even if Pat Neshek had been able to stop the bleeding without giving up the go-ahead run we most likely would overlook all the other runs they gave up.

To be fair as poorly as the pen pitched against the Tigers the offense never gave up and even came close to mounting rallies in the ninth inning both nights. That’s good to see and as much as it hurts to say it, I feel better seeing the bullpen struggle then had our offense struggled and we lost a couple of low scoring games. The reason is because the Twin’s bullpen was clearly there strength coming into this season and a couple of bad outings aren’t going to change that. The offense is a much bigger question mark but if they can keep hitting the ball well, the pen will come around and the wins will start coming.

Right now the Twins are rebuilding and even after a couple of tough losses, the rebuilding process seems to be taking steps forward. A lot of these young guys are only going to get better the more they play together. And if you take away the final score (thanks to our bullpen) the future is looking bright. As long as they can stay around 500 for the first few months of this year they are going to have a shot at making some noise which should be fun.

MLB.TV Customer Service Email: Is this a joke?

2008-04-08T15:52:00.006-05:00

I know I've been complaining about MLB.TV a lot lately but it seems worth noting that there has been plenty to complain about. As one further example, just today I received an email response to a message I sent to customer service on April 2. I had received two auto response email previous to this one saying that they were experiencing a huge volume of emails and that someone would be emailing me as soon as possible. Here is what person wrote today in the email I received:

Recently you requested personal
assistance from our on-line support center.
Below is a summary of your
request and our response. If this issue is not
resolved to your
satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 7 days. Thank
you for
allowing us to be of service to you.

Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response
(Anisa Hoxha) - 04/08/2008 09:27 AM
Dear Fan:

Thank you for sending
your email. We appreciate your feedback.

Please call the toll-free
customer service hotline at 1-866-800-1275 in
order to improve your
experience. Thank you again for taking the time to write!

Sincerely,

Customer Response
TeamMLB.com

Wow, it took them 6 days to have a person respond with that? All they really did was refer me onto call support and then pretended they solved the problem. How crazy is that? They couldn't even personalize it with my name. Obviously this was just as canned of a response as the initial auto-response emails that I received but at least they didn't pretend to solve my issue. What I think is most appalling is that they closed my ticket and marked my problem "solved" in there support status site. I'm sure this makes there customer support look artificially better as they can now include me in the statistics of resolved cases. The whole thing is a joke. Of course I did resolve my problem (little thanks to them) and would just soon not have to deal with them anymore so I'm just going to let it go now. Don't let them fool you thogh if you see any statistics of resolved cases making MLB.TV customer service look good. Numbers can lie.

Twins loose but there's plenty to be excited about

2008-04-03T15:17:00.005-05:00

The Twins lost the game and the four game series with the Angels this afternoon but there really was plenty to be excited about.

Joe Mauer was swinging the bat pretty good...so good that they gave him an intentional walk in the ninth when he represented the tying run.
Matt Tolbert looked really good in his pinch hit at bat in the ninth taking so tough pitches and fowling others off.
Jason Kubel crushed the ball into the upperdeck for the Twin's first homerun of the year.
Many of the Twins hitters including Cuddyer, Lamb and Young were hitting the ball hard but right at people.
Best of all the pitching looked pretty solid today as Slowey was off to a pretty good start (hopefully his injury isn't serious), Bass pitch a few good innings before running out of gas and the rest of the pen looked good too.

Of course I'd feel better if the Twins had won the game but this season has to be looked at as a growing experience and in that regard things are looking pretty good. In fact as good as our pitching has looked so far it's quite possible that the team might be closer to making some noise then all those experts think. To early to know yet so we'll just have to keep watching.

MLB.TV working on Fullscreen Issue

2008-04-03T13:37:00.003-05:00

Finally got through to MLB.TV customer service. Actually I got through this morning and they couldn't even find my email or name in there system not that it mattered because they just put me on hold and dropped my call. Then I called back, waited on hold for a while and talked to someone else who told me he couldn't help my black out issue unless I was currently being blacked out from a live game. At that point the Twins game was about 20 min away so I really hated to have to call back but and wait again but the customer service guy assured me that that was the only way. So I called back one more time after the game had started and waited on hold for another 45 minute. Once an agent picked up, the person actually solved my issue in just a minute or two and just like that I'm able to watch the Twins again.

Before getting off the phone I confirmed with the customer service agent that I wouldn't have to call them for each game. She confirmed that though said they are having multiple issues with Blackout problems (especially with MLB.TV Premium accounts). She added that they are also having issues with their new media player and are also working to solve fullscreen issues. Hearing they are working on fixing the full screen issues was music to my ears so I figured I'd pass that along.

New Silverlight Player is a step backwards for MLB.TV

2008-04-03T09:03:00.004-05:00

I've been anything but impressed with the new Silverlight video player that MLB.TV is now using. In spring training it did give a live box score along with the video which was nice but for some reason that's not there anymore now that the real games are being played. Worse yet is how choppy and pixelated video looks in the new player plus when I use the new Silverlight player my computer slows way down and makes it hard to multitask. Fortunately I've figured out a way to get the games to play with the original Windows Media Player.

All you have to do is disable the Silverlight plug-in. In Internet Explorer simply click on "Tools" then "Manage Add-ons" then "Enable or Disable Add-ons." In the list box that opens find the plug-in named "AgControl Class" and disable it. Then when you launch your MLB video it will detect that you don't have the new player and give you the option to use the original media player. It won't look exactly like last years player but the video quality will be better by leaps and bounds and I find that the controls are easier to use then the Silverlight player.

To make the video go full screen all you have to do is right click on the video and select "Zoom" then "Full Screen." The one problem I am finding is that the video, even if it's 3x4 in appearance, is actually widescreen with black bars on the sides so the picture won't fill the entire screen even in fullscreen mode which is unfortunate and hopefully they will fix. I don't know much about Windows Media Player plug-ins but I wonder if there isn't one out there that will remove the black bars and play the video in a 3x4 format. That would sure be nice.

It certainly appears the new Silverlight Player is a work in progress so hopefully it gets better. It would be nice if they could integrate more information, like what you get in gameday, into the video player but if the video continues to be choppy it will still be a disappointment and step back. It's kind of like you can have a watch that is a virtual mini computer on your wrist but if it fails to quickly tell the time, it's still failure as a watch. That's enough deep thinking for now I guess. As long as they keep the option for the old windows media player I'll be happy.

Incidentally the Twins are now 1-0 when I watch them and 0-2 when I don't. MLB customer service still hasn't fixed my blackout problem so the Twins loosing streak continues :-) At least I'm starting to like the new gameday a bit better. It's nice that they give the type of pitch and speed now. Almost felt like I was watching Nick Blackburn's remarkable first start in the majors last night. Even though he lost 1-0, if he keeps pitching like that he's going to win a lot of games for the Twins.

Frustration with MLB.TV support

2008-04-02T08:45:00.004-05:00

Last night I was all set to watch the Minnesota Twins' second game of the season on my computer using MLB.TV when all of a sudden I got a notice saying that the game was being blacked out due to my location. I had this same issue last year as apparently my home IP address makes MLB.TV think I'm located in the Twins' blackout area even though my zipcode shows that the Twins shouldn't be blacked out in my area. A simple call was all it took last year to correct the issue as the support guy just took my IP address and must have told there systems to allow it. Apparently that fix didn't carry over to this season though so I called up support and waited for ... a whole hour. Finally a friendly person came on the line and told me that he wasn't a technical support person but due to the extreme high volume of calls they were receiving, he was taking names and numbers so that they could call me back and I wouldn't have to wait on the line. I was ok with this until just before hanging up he told me that I would be contacted in the next 48 hours. I paused a bit shocked as I assumed I would be called back that evening yet and asked if there was any way I could receive some kind of reimbursement for the games I was missing. The support guy said he understood that I had payed for a product and it should work but that there were refunds. I wasn't really expecting much if anything so I let it go. It's just the principal of the whole thing seems wrong to me and that bothered me. There isn't much I can do though as my cable provider doesn't carry the Twins and there is no other way to watch the games so I'll just have to wait for things to get straitened out.

The good news is that I didn't miss much of a game as the Twins got slaughtered by a score of 9 to 1. Yuck. Hopefully they've got that out of there system. At least they're still playing 500 ball. Guess they need me watching them more then I realized.

Opening night for the Twins

2008-04-01T10:17:00.006-05:00

Boy it's fun to have baseball back. The Minnesota Twins didn't disappoint last night as they started the 2008 season out on the right foot...that being the foot of Carlos Gomez. He sure looks like an exciting player to watch this year. My wife already proclaimed to me that he is her new favorite player. She really hasn't had a favorite since Jacque Jones left. Of course I don't expect Gomez to get on base three times every night, steal two bases and score two runs, but some nights his speed is going to single handedly be the difference maker and tonight was a prime example.

Overall I thought the team looked pretty good for the first game. Adam Everett's near grand slam got me pretty excited even though it went foul. The thought occurred to me that everyone in the starting lineup can at least line the ball into the gap this year which is refreshing after watching the piranhas try to string together seeing eye basehits the last couple of years. We'll see how the starting pitching shakes out but regardless I think it's going to be a fun year.

On a side note, I'm less then impressed with the new Silverlight MLB.TV player. The video seams much more pixelated and choppy then the old Windows Media Player format. For some reason I couldn't revert to the old format last night like I could in Spring Training games so that was frustrating and I hope they get it fixed. I also had a look at the new gameday and didn't really care for that either. It seemed messier and having to scroll to get past adds and large tabs is no fun. Lucky for me the game was on ESPN so I didn't have to use MLB.TV. Maybe it will be better tonight.

Centerfield Stat Analysis (Part 3) - Gomez wins job

2008-03-24T09:48:00.003-05:00

La Velle E Neal III is reporting that the Carlos Gomez has won the starting centerfield job so this short series of comparing meaningless Spring Training stats will now come to an end. Did the Minnesota Twins make the right decision though? It's tough to say and in my mind the starting centerfield job could really have gone either way to Span or Gomez. Perhaps the Twins giving it to Gomez signals a little more that this is primarily a rebuilding year. There is no doubt that Gomez is the centerfielder of the future and has the makings of a real special player but if the Twins were simply looking for the best leadoff hitter right now I think Span would have to be declared the winner. Looking one more time at the stats, Span's on base percentage has remained steady even climbing a few points to 404 which is 100 points better then Gomez who did manage to get his on base percentage up to 300. Span showed modest improvements in his slugging and batting average as well and even took another couple walks which is usually a good thing for a leadoff hitter. Gomez has kept improving in all of his stats as well though and really has caught up to Span in batting average and continues to really outperform him in slugging. His downfall really has been his lack of walks and higher number of strikeouts. Maybe he makes up for that though with his blazing speed (10 stolen bases this spring) and his extra base power. In a game I was following the box score last week, Span got a hit or a walk to lead off the game (can't remember which one), then Gomez hit into a fielders choice. He stole second and third however and appeared to be brought home by a sac fly. A quick glance shows that Span had a better at bat, yet Gomez really manufactured that run mostly on his own. I think that kind of excitement that game changing potential that helped him beat out Span. For whatever reason we'll soon find out if it was the right decision as the season is set to begin. Play ball!

The Mystery of Good Friday: Embrace the Cross

2008-03-21T12:40:00.003-05:00

It's Good Friday and once again we as Christians remember in a special way the mystery of our salvation. We are saved by the Blood of this one man. He is no normal man but rather God become man. The crucifixion is both a horrific event but at the same time a beautiful act of love. Who are we that our God would become one of us and then offer Himself as a sacrifice to wash away our sins? We don't deserve such a friend but Jesus died for each one of us: What a wonderful gift His Love is. Now that we have been saved by the Blood of the Lamb ,we must embrace our own crosses and unite them with His, knowing that death is not the end of the story. Yes, the cross of Christ is terrible to behold, but somehow God has given us new life through it.

Centerfield Stat Analysis (Part 2)

2008-03-18T08:37:00.003-05:00

Our three starting centerfield candidates all have had another ten plus at bats and the difference in these numbers from the ones in my last post just goes to show how meaningless stats are at this time of the year. That being said I still continue to look at them in an attempt to understand who is winning the battle and will be wearing a Minnesota Twins' uniform in centerfield on opening day. Let's run through our three candidates and see which direction their numbers are moving.

Denard Span -- His numbers are slightly lower then my last analysis but overall he's remained very consistent as he still is hitting 276 with an on base percentage of 400. That on base percentage would look pretty good in the lead off spot if he can keep it up all year.

Jason Pridie -- His numbers have actually slightly improved though like Span he is staying fairly consistent. His batting average has dropped a few points to 297 but his on base percentage and slugging are both up a bit. He did finally get an extra base hit but still has a very empty batting average. The biggest problem I see is that he has stuck out 7 times to only on walk. Yikes!

Carlos Gomez -- Here is where we see the biggest improvement as Gomez raised his batting average almost 100 points to 263 as well as his on base percentage to 286. Not great numbers by any means but considering where those numbers were a few days ago, that's a huge step in the right direction. His slugging went up even more drastically from 292 to 500 as continues to make his hit's count in big ways. In that sense he's the exact opposite of Jason Pridie. Gomez has been exciting once he's gotten on base as well as he stole 3 more bases in the last few days doubling his total.

I got to watch these guys play on TV this weekend and I'm definitely pulling for Gomez. Span still continues to look consistent and is probably better suited for the lead off spot but Gomez is going to be a pretty exciting player and should continue to improve. That is probably the most valuable thing from looking at these meaningless statistics again. None of these players are putting up jaw dropping stats but one of them looks like he could. And who knows, in another week maybe he will.

Looking at the Twins Centerfield Candidates' Stats

2008-03-12T11:47:00.004-05:00

It’s still Spring Training so we can’t really put much stock in player stats but since I have no way to watch most of the games I find myself keeping a close eye on the stats being put up by the Minnesota Twins' three centerfield candidates. As of Wednesday morning a few things are standing out to me so I figured I’d share them.

The first thing I noticed was that Carlos Gomez leads the team in at bats with 24 (not surprisingly) and yet he only has a 167 batting average. Compare that with Jason Pridie who is hitting 304 so far and Denard Span who is hitting 278 and Gomez appears to be less than impressive. This got me a little more excited about Pridie though and my initial reaction was to think that he probably has the best chance to win the centerfield job. Looking closer at his numbers though reveal that his batting average is extremely empty as he has no extra base hits and no walks to go along with four strike outs. Then I looked at Denard Span’s stats and found that he is currently the doing the best of the three and it isn’t even close. Spans 278 average is nothing special but he has backed it up with a couple of doubles, four walks and no strike outs giving him a 435 on base percentage which is head and shoulders better then the other two. Of course it’s early but the winner after the first couple weeks based on the stats alone is clearly Span. Of course stats this time of the year mean next to nothing but it’s still surprising to me to see Span leading the charge.

First Impressions of our 2008 Minnesota Twins

2008-03-06T09:11:00.004-06:00

Got to see the first part of the Twins preseason game against New York Yankees yesterday. Of course it's just one meaningless game but it was my first chance to see some of our new players and overall my first impressions were mixed.

Delmon Young really impressed me. Not only did he show some strength on a home run to center field but he also was taking some pitches and using the whole field (in particular he a hard single to the opposite field in his last at bat). If first impressions hold true then he's going to be our MVP this year.

On the other hand Carlos Gomez did absolutely nothing to impress me or make me think that he's ready for the big leagues. He did take a couple pitches in his first at bat and laid down a nice looking bunt but after that he didn't seem very disciplined nor at the plate. What really disturbed me about him though was how he looked on defense. To me it looked like he misplayed a couple balls hit to center and then he had not one but two horrendous throws to home plate that made memories of Jacque Jones not seem so bad. Of course it's just one game but based on my first impression he's going to be starting at triple A this year which might be best.

My impressions of Brendan Harris were more of a mixed bag. The most exciting thing to see for me is that he looked very comfortable at the plate and had some good at bats working the count and putting some good swings on the ball. Defensively he looked below average, not charging a ground ball and missing one that looked to have gone off or just beneath his glove. Those things can be improved on though so if he continues swinging the bat well, he should be our starting second baseman with Nick Punto replacing him defensive reasons at the end of the game.

Kevin Slowey got the start and didn't do half bad. He was aggressive with his pitches throwing strikes early in the count but he did leave some balls up. Overall I think he showed that he can be a very good fifth starter if they need him but he's not going to blow anyone away.

A couple other nice things to see were watching Alexi Casilla make a strong throw from deep in the whole at short and watching Garrett Jones absolutely smash a pitch that was left up and out over the plate for a long home run. That's exactly what you're suppose to do to a pitch like that and being that he's got a good chance of being a bench player this year, it was good to see. Overall it's just fun to be able to watch baseball again. I'll paste all my notes in here now so you can see my thoughts on the individual at bats.

My Twins game notes from March 5, 2008:
#) denotes at bat

Defense Notes:
First Inning
P Kevin Slowey
1) Looks to be attacking the strike zone.
2) Leave a pitch up and it gets lined to center
3) Still seams to be up in the zone…finally gets a pitch down and gets a weak grounder to Second ,,, Harris seams a bit timid in fielding as he doesn’t charge the ball
4) Keeping the ball down better…Fools Arod on a great breaking pitch off the plate. Almost got him on good looking pitch inside (ump doesn’t give it to him)
5) Nice strikeout of Giambi

Second Inning
6) Still attacking the strike zone. Gets a pop fly to left
7) Left a pitch up that is lined to center…Gomez misjudges it and looks a bit foolish
8) Leaves another pitch up that gets smashed to the center field wall…Gomez looks timid again to me …maybe he wasn’t sure where the wall was
9) Nice strikeout
10) hard smash up the middle…Harris makes a nice effort but comes up short on a dive
11) Walk
12) Lined to center…Gomez throws to the plate and makes a terrible throw to the plate that’s about 12 feet wide of Joe Mauer
13) Arod strikes out

Third Inning
P Julio Depaula
1) First pitch single to left
2) Throwing some nice looking pitches…pop fly to right
3) Ground ball up the middle…Gomez is way of the mark again on a throw to the plate but it is cut off and they get an out on hitter going to second
4) Nice looking strikeout

Forth Inning
P Randy Keasler
1) Strikeout
2) Ground out to second
3) Ground ball that goes under Harris’ glove…was moving to his right but I think he should have had it
4) Pop fly to center

Fifth Inning
5) Fly ball to center
6) Grounder deep in the hole to short…Casila makes nice strong throw and gets him out…nice pick by Morneau
7) Grounder to first

Offesive Notes:
CF Carlos Gomez
1) Nice bunt…good to see him take a few pitches
2) Chopper to short
3) Skies first pitch to short center

2B Brendan Harris
1) Looks like a patient hitter taking a few tough pitches….does a nice job hitting a single on a pitch up in the zone.
2) Showing patience again going 3-0…grounds to second
3) Takes the first pitch again….chopper up the middle for force out

C Joe Mauer
1) Still patient as ever up there waiting for his pitch…picked the wrong pitch to swing at as he got on top of a curveball grounding into a DP.
2) Chops ball to first
3) Loops a ball into the gap for a double

1B Justin Morneau
1) Takes a few pitches that look like balls but get called strikes…Works count full and flies out to center
2) Holds up on tough breaking pitch…ends up walking
3) Lines out to center…Mauer gets gunned down easily trying to advance to third

LF Delmon Young
1) Nice looking swing…definitely shows some power with a tall homerun to center
2) Takes a few pitches…lines a one hopper to third
3) Smashes a single to the opposite field. Nice swing

3B Brian Buscher
1) Works the count and then lines a bullet to the first baseman’s glove.
2) Line drive over first baseman’s head
3) [Matt Marcri] pinch hits and strikes out

DH Jon Knott
1) Grounds out to third
2) Misses a fastball that’s left up and over the plate…fouls of some pitches then gets wrung up

RF Garrett Jones
1) tapper to the pitcher
2) hits a fastball left up and out over the plate way out of the park…that’s what you’re spouse to do with that pitch

SS Matt Tolbert
1) Strikeout
2) First pitch hits his foot…look like it was probably intentional?

Meaning of Suffering

2008-03-04T11:46:00.000-06:00

“Why does God allow pain and suffering?”

This is a question that a lot of people have been asking for quite some time. Both people who believe in God and those who don’t have a hard time comprehending how a god who is all good and loving could allow his people to suffer.

First of all lets be honest; nobody enjoys suffering and I’m no exception. So saying that because it is not enjoyable is a poor argument so to say it has no value. There are many things that I don’t enjoy but that I can see are good such as getting my flu shot or having my teeth cleaned at the dentists. I view suffering as being similar in that of course I don’t want to experience it, but it can produce a greater good for myself or others. This has been obvious so many times in my life as I can see how not getting one job has opened up the door for another. I’ve even seen things such as the tragedy of a sudden death, bring people closer together. In fact if I could go back in my life I wouldn’t want to avoid all the pain and hard times I’ve experienced as I can see that they have definitely made me the man I am today.

But this still doesn’t excuse God from allowing suffering. After all he is all powerful and surely could find a way to accomplish the same thing in a more pleasant manner. This is true to the extent that God can do whatever He desires as He’s the one setting up the rules. What is important to note here that God doesn’t will that anyone should suffer but rather He “allows” suffering to be part of our lives as a result of our freewill. Our freewill is an incredible gift as it allows us to choose between loving and hating God and each other. God didn’t want us to be robots that did good and worshiped him only because they had too. That wouldn’t really be love as we would have no choice in the matter. True love is something that can only be given if there is a choice not to love as well and this is why freewill is necessary.

God loves us unconditionally and yet our freewill let’s us accept or reject this love. It was our first parents, Adam and Eve, who chose to reject God’s love and brought death and suffering to this world we now live in. In a sense we continue this rejection of God’s love in our own lives in the times that we fail to love our neighbor and make ourselves more important then God. So suffering then is part of the human condition but it never was something that God desired for us.

The amazing thing is that God takes the ugliness of our pain and suffering and somehow finds a way to bring good out of it. Just as the pain we feel in the gym can make our bodies stronger, our suffering can often help us grow. In many ways it is how we approach our suffering that determines how much good it can do in our lives and those around us. Even a person bedridden with a serious illness can offer their suffering up in prayer to God and He will use it for wonderful things.

Jesus Christ himself suffered an excruciating death so that our souls could be saved. It’s a mystery that God would allow His Son to undergo this suffering but once again it all goes back to love. He didn’t want there to be any doubt how much He loves us and the cross of Christ definitely shows us that. In the end suffering is still a mystery but it is not one that has to be feared when seen through the eyes of faith. It can be the path that leads us and other to holiness, so whatever our suffering is, weather large or small, lets embrace our cross like Christ trusting that God’s love will overpower it.

Weird Flash Video Problem

2008-02-27T16:23:00.002-06:00

For the last few weeks I've noticed that Flash Video wasn't working on most of the sites I visited in ie7. Instead of showing the video the site would show a message saying that I needed to upgrade my Flash Player to see the video. I tried upgrading the player multiple times and the installation always said it was successful but I'd still get the "please upgrade your flash player" message when I tried to view Flash Videos on new sites. What seemed even more strange was the fact that normal (non-video) Flash animations seemed to work fine.

After doing some searching, I finally found a post by someone having similar problems to me with a solution. To solve the issue you need to browse to the C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash folder on your computer and run the executable files FlashUtil9d.exe and NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe. I gave this suggestion a try and sure enough it fixed my issue. I can now watch Flash Video again though I have no idea why.

Chalk it up to God's Mercy

2008-02-20T16:23:00.004-06:00

The other night my wife and I attended a Lenten mission put on by our local parish. The priest who was leading it was talking about God's mercy and started off by telling about a dream he had the night before. He dreamt he was standing at the pearly gates with St Peter. Beside him he saw the top of a spiral staircase which went all the way down to hell. St Peter gave the priest a piece of chalk and told him that getting into Heaven was really quite simple. He simply needed to take the chalk and write down each one of his sins on a separate step. If he ran out of sins before reaching the bottom, then he could come back up to Heaven. So the priest started writing down his sins on each step and after a while he saw our parish priest heading toward him up the stairs. "Don't worry, I'm just going up for more chalk," our parish priest said. At this everyone broke into laughter.

Expectations for the 2008 Minnesota Twins

2008-02-14T10:30:00.004-06:00

A lot has happened with the Minnesota Twins this offseason and now that we are only a few days away from the start of Spring Training I want to share my expectations for the upcoming season.

How will the team do?
On paper the Twins are just a 500 team and probably have to be picked to finish 3rd in the division. That doesn't mean I'm throwing in the towel on them though. Sure they will need some players to step up and as a team will need to stay healthy to make the post season but that's usually the recipe that gets most teams to October baseball. They are in arguably the toughest division in baseball so for a young team in semi-rebuilding mode I think you have to give them some credit.

How do we compare to last year?
It definitely hurts to loose Johan Santana, Torii Hunter and Carlos Siva, but overall the 2008 Twins appear better rounded then the 2007 team. They've greatly improved their bench and have brought in some players that should give them more average production from 3rd base, 2nd base and DH. Arguably they've improved the Left field as well but that's kind of a wash since our new center fielder probably won't be hitting 30 home runs this year. These small upgrades might not seem like much but I think that in addition to getting a bit more production out of these spots in the line-up, this will also take some pressure off of Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer. Last year this trio started trying to do to much and I think their production suffered because of it. Of course baseball usually comes down to pitching and we definitely have some big question marks there.

Did we make the right decisions saying good-by to Hunter, Silva and Santana?
Looking at things logically I really wanted to see the team keep Hunter but the time to sign him was probably a year or two back. It's definitely a good thing that the Twins didn't pay him the big money that the Angels gave him so I guess I'm ok with that. As for Silva, the Twins definitely did the right thing as he's also being overpaid and we have plenty of young pitchers who project to be able to fill his shoes relatively quickly. Loosing Santana, on the other hand, really hurts. He is the best pitcher in baseball and probably one of the best players ever to wear a Twins uniform. My gut really wanted to see the team step up and sign him and as I said with Hunter, he really should have been extended a year or two back. That being said though, I can totally see the huge risk it would have been to tie up so much payroll in a pitcher and respect the Twins for trading him. It would have been a huge distraction for the team to go into the year with him and in the end I don't think he wanted to play baseball in Minnesota anymore. He handled the situation very professionally though and I hope he does good for his new team.

How about the new guys?
Livan Hernandez - I like this signing. Not that he's going to come anywhere close to replacing Santana but he will provide some stability and leadership in a very young rotation. With all the innings he usually pitches the bullpen will probably like him too.
Philip Humber - He doesn't excite me much too much, but maybe he regains some of his velocity and can turn out ok.
Adam Everett - This was a good signing. Not much offensively but really makes our infield defense better across the board I think.
Brendan Harris - Nothing spectacular here but I think he'll hit better then Punto and overall improves the team's depth if nothing else.
Mike Lamb - Another low risk move that should improve the offense and they can always replace him with Punto for defense at the end of a game.
Carlos Gomez - I'm actually really excited about Gomez and think he's going to turn into a great player. Personally I'd like to see him start in AAA though to take off some pressure of having to perform well right away. Then after he's been tearing it up down there for a few months they can bring him up and let him play everyday.
Craig Monroe - I was very encouraged by the fact that even after they acquired Delmon Young that they still kept Monroe. He's not going to be anything outstanding but will be a good bat off the bench and give the team a lot of flexibility.
Jason Pridie - I think he's going to eventually turn into a better version of Lew Ford and be our fourth outfielder. Probably starts the year splitting time with Monroe in center though.
Delmon Young - I talked to my wife's uncle who lives in Tampa Bay about the trade for Young and he said he totally thought the Twins got the better end of that deal. He was very high on Young and thinks he's going to be an all-star very soon. I think he might be right.

Am I excited about baseball staring up again?
Absolutely! This is one of my favorite times of the year. There's always hope that the team will surprise people with a memorable year, but even if they are only a 500 team I'm excited to see how these young players develop. The goal seams to be that they are building for 2010 while trying to give themselves a chance to stay competitive now. Should be fun to see how they do. They are off to a good start.

Sony W80 Camera - Avoid the Zoom

2008-02-11T13:01:00.001-06:00

I wanted to post some additional information about the new Sony w80 camera that my wife and I got back around Thanksgiving. It made it through my dad’s wedding, multiple Christmas celebrations, and a week long trip on a cruise ship so I now have a lot better feel for what it can and can’t do.

The good news is the camera held up through all that shooting (around 2000 pics over a month’s time) very well and overall I’m pretty pleased with it especially for the price we paid. Its biggest weakness I’ve found is it’s anemic flash. This makes it nothing special when shooting a moving subject more then 6 feet away indoors. I noticed this right away when shooting with it at Christmas time around family and friends opening gifts. I was always disappointed with the quality when shooting people across the room opening gifts and ended up switching back to my older Sony Mavica CD500 camera to get some better results. That’s not to say that the shots I took with the Sony Cybershot w80 weren’t usable for us. We still could print 4x6s off which for us is the main goal but even these small prints were marginal looking. As a rule of thumb I’ve told my wife that not to use the zoom indoors if she can help it as just walking closer makes the shot 100 times better.

F-2.8(max), S-1/40, ISO-800, FocalLength-6mm (Zoomed Out)

F-5.2(max), S-1/50, ISO-800, FocalLength-17mm (Zoomed In)

Closer up shots always came out great though and if a subject is fairly stationary, like at my dad’s wedding, you can just turn off the flash and get pretty good results as well. And of course my favorite aspect of the camera is its size. On our cruise vacation I had it with me in my pocket almost the entire time and got so many wonderful shots that I would have missed if I only had my bigger camera along.

Another thing that was really handy on the camera was the fact that it give you a live histogram which was useful for getting the correct exposure on the beach at times. The battery life is also outstanding and other then the underpowered flash the only real nock against it I had was that in low light candid situations (like at night on the deck of the ship) it takes it a while to lock the focus. I did find that in times like this you’re better off turning the face detection off which speeds it up a bit. Overall I’m pretty happy with it.

Confusion on the War in Iraq

2008-02-08T15:57:00.000-06:00

For the most part I just try to avoid politics all together. I usually vote mostly republican as I’m definitely for smaller government and am pro-life, but it’s fairly obvious that both parties lie and that there are good and bad people in both. Now with all the presidential chatter in the news I figured I should start figuring out who I want to support. Most of the issues I can go down the list and I have a fairly good idea where I stand but the War in Iraq leaves me scratching my head.

At the start of the war I thought it was necessary but as no weapons of mass destruction were found and it started to become clear that we were in a messy situation I changed my mind and started agreeing with people who said we shouldn’t have gone to war in the first place. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m convinced we should pull out now though. After all, we started this mess so it seems only fair that we should take some responsibility for it. Plus I think there is some truth to the fact that if we pull out, the Middle East becomes a bigger problem for our country to deal with then it already is. However, on the flip side of that if establishing a peaceful government there is not an attainable objective then we are basically just putting off the inevitable by remaining there not to mention costing lives and adding to our national debt. So for me the question comes down to, can we accomplish our mission there?

Getting a straight answer on this seems to be nearly impossible. The media has an agenda, the Republicans have an agenda and the Democrats have an agenda. Of course everyone is so passionate about their position that most discussions you can find on this topic make it totally impossible to separate fact from fiction. Hopefully as we get closer to Election Day I can get a better grasp for this complex situation though I don’t really see how. It would be great to get an unbiased report directly from the people making the decisions and those in Iraq but I doubt that is likely to happen.

Part of me thinks that with public opinion so against the war, the only logical reason for a presidential candidate to say he supports it is because it is truly in our nation’s best interest. One has to look deeper though as this could just be a front to create separation from the other candidates or to follow the company line. Still if someone is trying to sell themselves to the public, why take the less appealing position?

Up until now I’ve been happy to think (whether it’s true or not) that the people making the decisions know more about it then me, but now I along with the rest of America may be making the choice between staying or pulling out of Iraq. I don’t trust the politicians and now I don’t even know if I can trust myself.

Sony w80 vs cd500 Low Light Comparison

2007-11-26T13:10:00.000-06:00

I’ve been shooting with a Sony Mavica cd500 for the last few years and recently picked up a Sony Cyber-Shot DCS-w80 for my wife. She wanted something smaller that she could carry in her purse or pocket and would be simple to use. Now that we have the two cameras I’m curious which one is the better lowlight performer. The following is a comparison of meter readings taken in lowlight with the flash turned off, of the same subject with both cameras. I kept the framing consistent throughout the readings so 3x and 1x zoom shots appeared the same. In other words to get the same shot I just moved the camera closer or further away to compensate for the zoom.

From this we can derive the following statements:

Zoomed out all the way to 1x the w80 shoots slightly faster then the cd500
Zoomed in all the way to 3x the cd500 is 1 whole stop faster then the w80
When comparing similar apertures and ISOs the w80 appears to become faster as the aperture numbers increase and is faster overall (not sure why this is…different physical sized sensors perhaps?)

With this in mind the w80 can give the fastest shutter time in low light but the cd500 makes up for that when using the zoom so in a realistic situation (like shooting candids at a birthday party) the cd500 is faster. This is thanks to being able to still use a 2.5 aperture when fully zoomed in. When using the flash the cd500 performs better again as the w80’s flash is underpowered and must use ISO 800 at times to get a usable shot that the cd500 can take with ISO 100.

Of course shooting a motionless subject is a different story. The w80 has images stabilization so if your subject isn’t moving you can probably handhold a couple stops more then what you could handhold with the cd500 which easily makes up for cd500’s faster lens. One other trick the w80 has is the ability too use 3 higher ISO settings to let you handhold a shot that the cd500 couldn’t come close to, though in my opinion the quality of these high ISO images shows a substantial drop off from the cd500’s ISO 400 so I would avoid it if possible. It’s also worth mentioning that the w80 longest available shutter is 1 second (I did notice that using the Night Scene setting on the w80 can increase the shutter to 2 seconds. It defaults to ISO 125 though so you don’t really gain anything additional) while the cd500 can take an up to 8 second exposure which is about 3 stops better. You might think that the w80’s three higher ISO settings would compensate for this but the quality with them in that little light is horrendous.

In conclusion I would have to say that the cd500 is better for taking candids in flash situations or extreme low light pictures. If your subject is stationary though and you have the option to walk closer to it, then the w80 would be the better camera. Of course image quality is a whole other topic and more subjective to test. It’s probably six of one half and a dozen of the other as the w80 uses a newer processor which should give it a better dynamic range, but the cd500 uses less noise reduction so it holds on to details better. The final consideration for low light shooting would be focusing speed. I haven’t measured this but both cameras had to hunt a bit in low light probably close to a second at times. The w80 has face detection though which should makes it a bit more reliable at obtaining correct focus in candid situations. I guess neither camera can totally replace the other as they both have their advantages. This Christmas I’ll be using the cd500 and my wife will shoot with the w80 so we should get the best of both worlds. We’ll have to wait and see if one is the clear winner.

iPod trouble

2007-11-21T11:58:00.000-06:00

I’ve had my iPod for close to a couple years now and have rarely had any problems with it. Got a little worried the other day however, when I went to play a song on my way to work and found that all my playlists and songs were gone. It was as if everything had been erased. The first thing I thought of was that I had just updated my iPod software before leaving for work so that must have had something to do with it. When I plugged it back into my computer I was relieved to see that it still showed all of my playlists and songs on my iPod in iTunes so everything was still physically there, it just wasn’t recognizing it without the computer. After doing a little reading on the web, most suggestions seemed to recommend updating my iTunes as well as my iPod. This seemed like a simplistic fix but I figured I’d try to update my iTunes and what do you know. That took care of the problem. Still not sure why having a slightly outdated iTunes messed up my iPod to that extent (you would think they would keep things backward compatible at least a version or two) but all’s well that ends well. I’m just glad I don’t have to recreate all my playlists again.

Hunter vs Santana

2007-08-31T10:05:00.000-05:00

So now that it’s official that the Minnesota Twins won’t be playing baseball this October it’s time for Terry Ryan and the Twins to make some big decisions. Just about everyone has an opinion on if the team should resign Hunter and/or Santana. I honestly have changed my mind quite often over the season and wonder if Ryan may have as well.

My thought at the end of last year was that the Twins would let Hunter go after 2007 and extend Santana’s contract this coming off-season. Hunter’s defense was definitely showing signs of slowing and despite his good second half offensively, there was little reason to think it was any more then an extended hot streak. Of course Santana was pitching like the best pitcher in baseball and is our only real veteran starting pitcher (not counting Silva) so why wouldn’t you want to keep him around.

As the year has progressed however, I’m starting to wonder if Hunter isn’t the player the Twins should keep. Of course I think most people would agree that if money wasn’t (or somehow isn’t) an issue then the Twins should absolutely keep both players. I just don’t see that happening though on the Twins payroll, so….here is why the Twins should keep Hunter over Santana.

Hunter is arguably the second most productive hitter for the Twins and one of the few hitters we have that opposing pitchers actually are afraid of.
Hunter has grown up a lot as a hitter over the last two seasons and his current offense (even accounting for this year being a career year) would be hard to replace if he’s not brought back.
Hunter bats right handed and hit’s homeruns.
These are two things that are pretty rare in the Twins’ system currently
Hunter is still a good defensive player.
While defense has declined he’s still a very capable center fielder
Hunter is an emotional player and a big game player.
Is he a good leader (or are team leader even that important)? I don’t know but he cares about the game and will show emotion when playing which I think is great. And when it comes to big games he definitely steps up his game a notch.
Hunter is a tough player and gives it his all.
Hard to know if he should be calling out Mauer for not playing through injuries but regardless you know Hunter is going to do everything possible to play and when he’s out there he’ll give 110%.
Santana will cost more and play less.
Even though he’s possibly the greatest player in the game we will have to pay him royally for that reason and he still only plays every five games meaning those dollars have a smaller impact on the team.
Santana likely won’t stay without Hunter.
After Santana’s remarks at the trade deadline, it’s hard to imagine him wanting to stay in Minnesota if the Twins don’t retain Hunter. And I can’t say I blame him.
Santana can be traded.
It’s debatable how much we could get for trading Santana but the best pitcher in baseball is going to fetch something useful. Definitely more then just draft picks.
Santana is replaceable (sort of).
Ok no one can replace Santana but the Twins do have two potential ace pitchers who are major league ready and zero major league ready centerfield talent.

Well there you have it. Keep in mind that I have no doubt that Santana is the better baseball player. On a team with an average offense he could very easily be winning his fourth Cy Young award this year and is likely on his way to the Hall of Fame. Not to mention he’s a humble, big game player, and great in the community. So how can Hunter really be the be more important to the Twins? I better go back and reread my reasons again (or maybe I’ll just change my mind one more time).

Looking for quallity at-bats

2007-05-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of talk lately about the state of the Twins hitting. Obviously they aren't scoring enough runs and overall the stats they are putting up aren't very pretty. Numbers don't tell the whole story though of if a player is taking good at-bats (especially at this point of the year). All this got me wondering how many quality at-bats the Twins are taking. What makes a quality at-bat is highly subjective but it's usually pretty easy to spot a good or bad one so I decided to study each at bat the Twins' hitters took yesterday and try to determine how many quality at bats we were taking and who was responsible for them. I really didn't worry weather or not the player got a hit but was more concerned with them swinging at good pitches, working the count and hitting the ball hard. Here is a chart of my observations:

To summarize my ratings of good at-bats:

Castillo = 3 for 5
Punto = 2 for 4
Hunter = 0 for 4
Cuddyer = 1 for 4
Morneau = 2 for 4
Cirillo = 2 for 4
Redmond = 3 for 4
Rabe = 1 for 3
Kubel = 0 for 1
Bartlett = 2 for 4
Team Overall = 16 for 37

With such a small sample size it's hard to say what percentage should be considered average but my guess is that an average player/team should be able to produce quality at-bats 50% of the time so for the night the Twins came up a short of this mark. Obviously Redmond and Castillo had the best at-bats overall. Morneau's numbers are a bit deceiving though as his two quality at bats were walks he didn't really have to work for and the other two at-bats he stuck out with terrible swings. Likewise Cirillo had a couple quality at bat's but he also bounced into two double plays. It's just one game though so it would be interesting to see how things play out over a longer period of time. Anyway you look at it, the Twins are struggling at the plate right now.

Becoming Simon

2007-04-04T09:55:00.000-05:00

No not Simon Cowell. I’m talking about a different Simon, more commonly known as Simon of Cyrene. The Bible tells us that he was the one forced into helping Jesus carry his cross. When I was younger I didn’t view Simon as that great of a guy. After all it’s not like he volunteered to help Christ or even wanted to. Someone else made that decision for him and he never really had a choice. So why do I now want to become like him?

I guess I started to rethink my opinion of Simon while back in high school. I had the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land during Lent and there’s just something about visiting the places that Jesus walked that makes it so much more real. These events didn’t happen in some universe light years away from ours; it’s not just a nice story in a book. The people in the gospels were actual people like you and me and experienced similar emotions, struggles and joys. They had families, they laughed, and they had real problems. Without a doubt the most moving experience that I had on this trip was walking the Via Delarosa, the very same street that Christ carried his cross some 2000 years ago. We stopped and read meditations along the way of this narrow crowded stone path where at certain points the events of the Stations of the Cross took place. I was asked to read the meditation for the 5th station: Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross, and it got me thinking about myself in Simon’s shoes.

“Simon of Cyrene, called upon to carry the cross, doubtless had no wish to do so. When the condemned man’s shoulders became too weak, he lent him his. He moved along very close to Jesus, closer than Mary, closer than John who – though he too was a man – was not called upon to help. They called on him, Simon of Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus. They summoned him, they compelled him.

How long did he go on resenting being forced into this?

We do not know. St. Mark simply records the names of the Cyrenian’s sons, and tradition has it that they were members of the Christian community close to St. Peter.” –Pope John Paul II

Recently I was thinking about this meditation as I watched the movie The Passion of the Christ. The last few years I’ve made a tradition of watching this film during Holy Week and it always seems to move me. As I watched it once again the other night I found myself tearing up at parts as I contemplated just how much God loves me and how I take that love for granted everyday. Sure I try to love God and my neighbor, but in the end I usually find my universe rotating not around Him but around me. Much like Simon my heart just isn’t in the right place.

Like Simon each one of us is given the opportunity to walk side by side with Jesus. Our Lord’s face can be seen everyday in people we meet and it’s our call whether we’ll embrace them with love. It’s no easy task. As Mel Gibson makes clear in his movie, Simon is just an ordinary man who has a good heart. He’s hesitant to let go of himself and embraces Christ but gradually he does. Each moment we are called to do the same and become a little more like Simon.

walking in the footsteps of Christ's Passion (May 1997)

ESPN knew about Garza

2007-03-29T14:12:00.000-05:00

Like most Twins fans I’ve paid close attention to how the starting rotation has been shaping up this spring. The other day while watching the game against the Yankees, I heard the ESPN announcer state that Matt Garza had been sent down and that Gardenhire had said that Silva would be the fifth starter and would be skipped in the rotation to start the year. Even though I think Garza is a much better pitcher then Silva, I wasn’t overly shocked by the news as I felt the Twins would go this route. What did surprise me was that LaVelle stated in a comment on his blog that he had talked with ESPN’s Buck Martines after the game and he denied that they reported that Garza was being sent down.

Now a few days later it sounds like what ESPN claimed they didn’t say, was true all along. My guess is that the Twins made the decision on the starting rotation prior to the game with the Yankees and the announcers just slipped when they made that comment. Why would the Gardenhire have told them announced team plans in the first place? And why did they keep Garza around the big league camp for an extra day? I just found the whole thing very interesting.

Making More Time

2007-03-16T23:08:00.000-05:00

One of my friends wrote me the other day saying that he has been crazy busy lately and everything seems like it is going in fast forward. “I need to slow down the time/space continuum,” he said and asked if I had any ideas. Of course he new better then to ask me for help but I think he new what he was getting into so I offered him the following “advice.”

“As for slowing down time, that might be a tall order. Of course in "my world" time doesn't exist (and it's hard to change something that doesn't exist). Actually this line of thinking might work in our favor...when you speak of time going too fast, you really mean that your perception of time is going too fast. What we need to do is alter your perception. If we could find a way to change the rate at which you perceive time to be passing we could trick your brain into thinking that more time had been processed and thus you would seem less busy. Let me explain:

Let's compare your busy day to a digital image. This image has a native resolution of 800x600 pixels. Now the monitor you’re looking at this image on is like your brain. If your monitor display resolution is also set to 800x600 then that picture is going to fill the entire screen and take up %100 of the pixel on it leaving no room for anything else. The effect is even worse if your screens resolution is smaller like say 640x480. Now the image, or your busy day if you will, doesn't even fully display on the screen. So what I'm saying is we need to increase your monitor/brain's resolution to 1024x768 and then you will not only be able to see the entire picture but you'll also perceive extra pixels around it thus making you feel like you have more time.

Well in reality I haven't found a way to naturally (without drugs) change my brain's resolution but I have found something else that seems to help. I have found that when I'm busy, forcing myself to take a few minutes of quite time to pray each day can really make a big difference in how busy I feel. It seems illogical that taking time to do nothing would help make my busy schedule less hectic but for some reason it really makes a difference. I think it helps me put everything in perspective and realize that there is meaning in my life beyond all the chaos. My theory on why this helps is that when you take time for something (in this case prayer) you're forcing yourself to not use all your
pixels on that picture that's making you feel so busy. In effect, instead of increasing your resolution as in my above example your shrinking the picture's resolution so that it's no longer consuming your whole monitor. Maybe I'm crazy but it definitely seems to help. Of course my hectic day is like a cake walk compared to even a slow day for my wife so what do I know (Obviously I've had time to rant here for quite while now).

Wow this got a little long. And to think I was trying to figure out how to give you more time when the answer is right in front of me...Don't read super long emails that go on and on about theories. To late for that I guess."

Joyful Mysteries

2007-03-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

Years ago I new a priest named Father Conrad (CFR) who always was filled with joy. I asked him one time how how come problems never seemed to bother him. "Everyone's got problems," he said. "I used to get stressed out all the time, but now I've learned to just say a prayer and trust God with them. They're his problems then so there is no no need for me to worry about them."

I've been thinking a lot about joy lately. What exactly is it and how do we obtain it? As my wife and I prayed the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary together the other day it struck me that each of the five mysteries relates difficult circumstances in which the people involved undoubtedly experienced hardships. These include problems like dealing with a pregnancy outside of marriage to loosing Jesus when he was 12 years old in the big city of Jerusalem. And yet these are called Joyful Mysteries. Sure, in the end everything works out but I know that if I was in these situations they wouldn't be causing me to leap for joy. So how did these people find joy? The common denominator is that just like Father Conrad, these people trusted God and His will for their lives. In doing this their problems didn't magically disappear but they were able to find true joy by experiencing a peace that only God can give.

I also recently read a short article on Finding Joy Through Suffering. The part that really hit me was when the author wrote that "The crosses in our own lives are not ends, but means." I think in the end, the reason joy and pain are often found together is that it is only in surrendering what we cannot control, that we really will find true joy.

Converting TiVo to DVD with Nero

2007-01-19T11:01:00.000-06:00

For Christmas I got a new external HP DVD burner and was immediately excited about the prospect of backing up shows from our TiVo Series2 box to DVD so we can watch them later or away from our home. The process wasn’t as easy as I first thought it would be but after going through a stack of DVDs and lots of time testing I finally developed a process that I am happy with. Being that I couldn’t find much help for how to do this on the web, I figured I would document my process here and hopefully save someone the hassle of figuring it out on their own. In a nutshell, here is what I do to convert a TiVo show to DVD in Nero.

Record TV shows to our TiVo box using the “High” quality setting
Transfer the TiVo show to my computer using TiVoToGo
Convert the TiVo file to an MPG using Direct Show Dump
*note: after some more testing I no longer need to do this step to convert the files to MPG as Nero will import and work with the TiVo files
Import the MPG file into Nero Vision Express 3
Edit out commercials create menu’s etc
Burn to DVD using the following DVD-Video settings:
a. Aspect ratio = Automatic
b. Quality setting = Standard play
c. Sample format = Progressive
d. Encoding mode = High Quality (2Pass VBR)
e. Audio format = Automatic

Of these settings, setting the sample format to “Progressive” is what I found to be most important. Any other setting would produce a DVD with jerky motion especially when the camera pans or there is a lot of quick motion. As I trouble shot this problem I quickly found that that it wasn’t the players I was trying it in. So I tried a different brand of disks and reduced the burn speed which didn’t make any difference. Next I tried defragmenting my hard drive, closing all my background processes, and even burning an iso image. When none of that worked I updated Nero and checked my drives firmware (which was already current). Updating Nero actually added a new problem as my video not only stuttered but also was compressed into a square dimension so I went back to the version that came with my drive. Finally I figured out that the problem was that it was trying use an Interlacing sample format. Now my DVDs are turning out with nearly the same quality of the original TiVo file which is good enough for me.

I just want to mention a couple of other smaller things that may be helpful:

Don’t use animated buttons for Nero’s menu. I tried this and though it looked cool, it made the menu usable as it took forever to navigate from one button to the next when viewed in all of my DVD players. From what I read on line this is a known problem so it’s best to avoid it altogether.
Don’t use the compress video to fit to DVD option as compressing it more will add noticeable pixelization in many higher motion scenes. If the video’s too long, simply split it into two halves.

Great hitters make average hitters good

2006-09-11T09:49:00.000-05:00

For a while now many Twins fans, myself included, have dreamed about the Ron Gardenhire placing Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau back to back in the line-up. Just think of the damage they could do and with them both hitting lefties well there doesn’t seem like there should be anything holding this scenario up. Or is there?

While batting back to back would really make pitchers fear that part of the order, it may not allow the Twins to get the most out of the lineup one through nine. The thought occurred to me that if you were to move Morneau to the four spot this could expose Cuddyer as a much more vulnerable hitter. Not that his stats would fall apart completely but nobody wants to walk you and then pitch to Morneau and that has to help Cuddyer get better pitches to hit overall.

Similarly I would have to say that part of Punto’s success this year can be attributed to Mauer’s success who bats after him in the lineup. Some people have suggested moving Joe to the second spot and Punto down in the order and again I don’t think Punto would look like the same hitter then.

So while it might be fun to dream about the kind of stats the M&M boys could put up back to back it just might not be the optimal way to make pitchers sweat through the rest of the order. Both of these two are good enough where they don’t need someone protecting them to put up league leading numbers and placing offensively average hitters in front of them has probably elevated Punto and Cuddyer to above average play. This could also explain why our offense can seem to be so “all or nothing” at times since when Mauer isn’t hitting it really effects more then just his stats.

Also, a little off the topic but I was at the game yesterday and Santana spoiled us with another masterpiece. The ovation the crowd gave him was outstanding and after what he has done the last three years now he deserves every bit of it. What an honor to be part of it. In fact this whole season has been a dream come true for a Twins fan. Maybe we are riding on a little magic from a special center fielder who wants one more ring for Minnesota.

Boxes are Bad

2006-06-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

I always enjoy hearing about my ancestors, the people who are responsible for much of who I am. It’s interesting to stop and think about how people who we never knew passed on traits and habits (both good and bad) from one generation to the next. Not long ago my wife and I made the couple hour trip to visit my last surviving grandparents. They are quite the interesting couple full of love and caring. It was a treat for us to just sit and visit as we don’t get to do that very often. They talked to us about how my grandmother “chased” and finally caught my grandfather through careful planning of picnics. My great aunt, who was my grandma’s little sister, was also their visiting and of course had to tell us how my grandmother dropped her ought of a baby stroller when she was just an infant and never told their mother about it and how my grandfather chased her away from the house with a knife while he was babysitting cause she wasn’t suppose to be there. Grandpa was quick to add that she was causing trouble and it was just a little pocket knife.

The memories continued and covered all kinds of things from Grandpa getting out of Vietnam just before the war started to stories of my dad as child breaking his toe while playing soccer in the house after being told to stop and receiving no sympathy from Grandma. He ended up going down the street to my great grandparent’s house (his mom’s parents) to get help from his grandfather who was both blind and a chiropractor. My great grandparents must have been quite the special people hearing all the stories about them. They didn’t have much money but Grandma says they still never felt bad about it as there was plenty of love in their large family (12 kids) and they always set aside some money for those who had less. My great aunt said that whenever they would start complaining to their dad he would just ignore them and start singing till they stopped.

What really struck me though was something that my great aunt told me that my great grandmother would say. “Never put anyone in a box. Give them room for God to work with.” That’s some pretty hard advice to live by as it’s almost human nature to try to categorize people on first impressions and other experiences. I know I struggle with this constantly as there are people who I just don’t particularly enjoy. Even in my short life I’ve seen that we don’t live in a vacuum and the person I am today is very different then the one I was even a few years back. It’s easier to see myself changing then others though especially if they have hurt me. Now I’m sure my great grandparents weren’t perfect but the amazing thing is that from all accounts I have heard they really treated everyone they knew with this positive attitude. Hopefully my wife and I can someday pass along the same attitude about people to our own family.

The power of the Resurrection

2006-04-21T11:09:00.000-05:00

“All of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed. He is the stone rejected by you, the builders,which has become the cornerstone. There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” – From Acts 4

This was St. Peter’s bold proclamation as he stood before the very same leaders who condemned Jesus to death. As I read this passage, which was the first reading for today, it struck me what a 360 Peter had recently done. Not long before, Peter had witnessed these very men condemn Jesus and when questioned if he was one of Christ’s disciples, he adamantly denied even knowing Him. Now standing before them in possibly the same place even, Peter declares that there is no salvation through anyone but Christ. How amazing is that!

What a transformation Peter underwent. This is the power of the Resurrection and it gives me hope. I know I’m far from perfect and many times I deny the Lord through my words and actions. Yet God can take my imperfections and transform them. He can take my weakness and make it strong. Easter is a time of rebirth. It’s a time to celebrate the joy of Jesus’ conquering death. Like Peter, our lives can be changed.

Making Memories at Mall of America

2006-04-07T11:53:00.000-05:00

Last weekend my wife and I took my 10 year old brother, who also happens to be my godson, to the Mall of America to celebrate his recent birthday. It was his first time visiting this Minnesota landmark and it was pretty neat to see the look on his face when we walked in. Of course he wasn’t interested in shopping so we spent most of our time in the park (formerly known as Camp Snoopy) going on rides and having a good time.

The first ride we went on was one of those water log rides and it actually stopped as it was heading up the final hill. All we heard is that they were experiencing a delay and after a couple minutes the ride continued. My brother’s favorite rides were the two rollercoasters that we went on. It was his first time on a rollercoaster and he loved it. After the first one he said, “It’s just like on TV when the camera shows the view of someone moving really fast.” The second one had an added twist to it. And by twist I mean that it was basically a tilt-awhirl on a rollercoaster track. Standing in line for it, he told me felt a little queasy in his stomach. I told him that it was probably just nerves and he agreed that he was nervous. Of course once the ride started he loved it and all was well with his stomach (mine on the other hand kept spinning even after we got off the ride).

Besides the rides we also visited the underwater exhibit that is in the mall. It wasn’t nearly as big as the aquarium we went to previously in Chicago, but we all agreed that it was very nicely laid out. The highlight was seeing an octopus and getting to touch some small sharks and rays. After our busy day we had dinner in the Rainforest Café which actually has periodic thunderstorms complete with lighting and thunder, fog, and even rain in select areas. On the way out we stopped at Lego Land which has huge life size animals made completely of Lego bricks. All in all it was a fun day and I think we made a few memories.

Learning to Listen

2006-04-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

Last night our church held a communal penance service. These are normally held before Easter and Christmas each year to give people the opportunity to make a good Confession before these holydays. Usually the service consists of music, a few bible readings, a meditation, an examination of conscience, and finally the opportunity for individual Confessions. There was a large turnout last night and it was a beautiful service. Standing in line for Confession I could just feel the Holy Spirit’s presence in the gathering.

Confession, like Lent is not really a fun thing, but also like Lent, it can really be wonderful opportunity to grow in grace. No one likes to admit to their shortcomings, but to hear those words of forgiveness from Jesus acting through the priest can be an amazing feeling. Unfortunately I often find myself confessing the same sins over and over again as I definitely have my weaknesses.

Last night during my Confession the priest said something that hit me. He expressed to me how important daily prayer was in keeping priorities straight. He told me, “A lot of times we think that prayer is something we say and do for God, but in reality it’s not so much about what we say, but allowing God to speak to us.”

That’s pretty profound stuff and really spoke to me. I know that I too often turn prayer into another daily routine that I do and thus often miss out on that important aspect of just listening to God. It sounds so simple, but just like my human relationships, I know that it will take a fair amount of work and effort. I know I’ll fail again but that is the beauty of the Sacrament of Confession. No matter how terrible a sin we commit or how many times we struggle with it, if we are truly sorry Jesus is always ready to forgive us and welcome us back with open arms. His love is amazing.

01:02:0304/05/06

2006-04-05T09:21:00.000-05:00

Today at two minutes and three seconds after one, the time and date will be 01:02:0304/05/06. In case you’re wondering, that won’t happen any time soon (like try a hundred years). Of course I don’t expect anything that exciting to happen at that moment. I’ll be sitting at my desk working I’m sure (or reading about how the Twins lost their season opener last night). What I find interesting about this is that I, as well as others...find it interesting. The fact is that our minds like patterns and order and will go out of our way to find something like this even if it really doesn’t mean anything. As a graphic designer I use this principal every day by incorporating patterns and similarities into my work to make it more engaging to people viewing it. I guess we just want things to make sense. When we can find meaning in the world around us, it helps us find meaning in our lives. So let’s enjoy that unique moment today, but let’s not forget that every moment in our lives is just as special.

A New Season is Born

2006-04-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

Opening Day is finally here in Minnesota and a new baseball season has begun. Like a newborn child no one knows what lies ahead for it. At this point anything is possible. The Royals could win the World Series and the Yankees could loose 100 games. Ok, so that’s not likely to be happen but it could.

So what will the season hold for the Twins? The experts have done a 360 from last year when they predicted an appearance in the Fall Classic. Now most people are picking the team to finish only third in their division. The Twins have always done better as the underdog so this really doesn’t bother me. The Twins have possibly their best team in the last 5 years (in which they won the division three times). Of course the rest of the division has also improved as the reigning World Champion White Sox’s actually look to have improved their lineup and teams like Cleveland and Detroit have a lot of good young talent as well. Win or loose there should be a lot of good baseball to follow.

So why am I so optimistic? It’s mostly due to our pitching. Even with a horrible offense last year our pitching kept us competitive and the key people on the staff are all back and look ready to do just as well. Offensively the Twins can’t be any worse and on paper they even look better. A lot of things need to go right for them to win their division this year but I think that can be said about most teams. The teams that stay healthy, have young players step up, and get timely hits are usually the teams that stand above the rest in the end and right now the Twins are just as capable as the next team and with their pitching they probably even have a bit of an advantage.

Only time will tell what things will look like come October, but for now we all can at least hope. Hope that Morneau will have that 30 homer year. Hope that White and Castillo will make the hitters around them better. Hope that Batista can field adequately and that Stewart returns to his old self. The list could go on and on and undoubtedly things won’t turn out exactly as we would like them to. But then what fun would that be? Variables are what makes baseball (and life) interesting so let’s hope for the best and enjoy this new season of Twins’ baseball. 2006 may not fulfill all our hopes but who knows…the end result could be even better.

A bit out of our league

2006-04-03T12:59:00.000-05:00

The other day my wife and I were at the mall and she wanted to see if she could find a spring purse. She called me over to one she found and showed me the price tag. “One hundred and thirty dollars?” I read out loud. Then she shook her head and moved her thumb revealing an additional digit to the left. That’s right. This purse cost over a thousand dollars. Neither of us could believe it and needless to say we didn’t spend much more time in that store. Apparently it’s for people who are in a little higher class then us.

It got me thinking though. How bad would you feel if you owned a purse like that and got mugged? I would be saying, “Take the cash, just please let me keep the purse.” That definitely seems a bit backwards. Doesn’t it?

Visiting Relatives

2006-03-31T22:23:00.000-06:00

Last weekend my wife and I had the opportunity to visit with one of my aunt and uncles and their family. We had never been to their home which was about a four hour drive from our home. Their daughter had a lead role in her high school play, “Once Upon a Mattress”, so we figured it was a good time to take a little road trip.

The play was a lot of fun and my cousin, who we had never seen act before, did a tremendous job. She sang multiple numbers and really brought a lot of life to the show. Both my wife and I were amazed at her talent as we weren’t expecting anything nearly that good. I also got to help her brother tune some drums before the play which he playing in the orchestra. I had never even realized that you could tune a drum so that was a new experience for me.

The trip wasn’t all fun and games though. My uncle has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and you could see that dealing with this unfortunate situation is difficult for the whole family. He was in good spirits though joking about it and even showed us around the ice cream plant that he is a manager at (and of course we had to try a little bit of ice cream). We also had a chance to just sit in their home and visit and that really was the best thing off all. So often when we see relatives at reunions or special occasions, so much is going on that we don’t get a chance to really talk. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to head back and see them again (maybe for another play).

My Aunt and Uncle watch their daughter in the school play

#34

2006-03-07T11:23:00.000-06:00

Growing up, Kirby Puckett was a hero to me. When playing baseball in the yard with my brothers and the neighbor kids, he was the one I was pretending to be. I didn’t collect a lot of baseball cards but looking back it seems like every other card is of him. I remember when my dad would take me to Twins games at the Metrodome and seeing him play and hearing Bob Casey announce his name at the top of his voice. The dome would go wild with cheering fans regardless of the game situation. It always amazed me how you rarely could hear Casey announce Kirby’s last name for as soon as he started screaming “Kirbyyyyyyy....” cheers would drown him out. When Puckett came to bat anything could happen and like his walkoff homerun in game six of the 1991 World Series it was a familiar site that you almost came to expect.

I never got to meet Kirby but one of my college roommates used to work at a bowling alley that Puckett would go to. My friend said he was always the nicest guy with the biggest smile on his face and that Kirby always remembered his name and that he had a twin brother. Of course this wasn’t a rare thing as there are countless stories of how Kirby Puckett touched the lives of so many people. Now this childhood hero is gone. Sure he’s been out of baseball for a few years, but just like when he was forced to retire, part of my childhood has now died with him. To me Kirby Puckett will always be the face of the Twins. Thanks for all the good memories Kirby. You will be missed.

A New “Opportunity”

2006-03-02T11:42:00.000-06:00

Every morning when my wife and I get up we are greeted by our energetic little puppy. She wags her tail wildly and stands on her hind legs so she can reach up and lick us to death. This morning my wife mentioned that it’s pretty remarkable the way she gets so excited about the beginning of a new day with us. This got me thinking how easy it is to forget to count our blessings as we deal with the daily headaches of our life. After all each day is a gift and we never know which one will be our last.

My former manager loved to declare that he had a new opportunity for me when he had a new project to give me. My coworkers and I would just smile because we new the word “opportunity” was really his way of saying we’d be getting more work to do. It’s good to look at the positives though and this was what my manager was trying to communicate. Some people might just see more work but hopefully we would see the chance to improve our selves, company and clients.

It’s all about attitudes. Is the glass half empty or half full? As long as something is in her dish, I don’t think our dog really cares. It’s this worry-free attitude that I hope to embrace. So many things we can’t control but the one thing we can is our attitude. Each day...each moment is a new opportunity. One that we will never be given again. Let’s make the most of it.

The paradox of Lent

2006-03-01T09:47:00.000-06:00

Today marks the beginning of a new season of Lent. Many people see Lent as a dreary time of the year and in truth it’s not much fun doing stuff like fasting, abstaining from meat, giving little things up, and making more time for prayer, but at the same time it is one of my favorite times of the year. When it comes right down to it all those Lenten things we Catholics do serve one goal: growing closer to God. Of course we can do this any time of the year in many ways, but Lent is a season that challenges us and this is something I usually need. Life gets so hectic and busy that it’s easy for me to let my relationship with God take a back seat. Just as a married couple who don’t take time to spend together gradually grow apart, so does my relationship with the Lord.

I once heard a priest say in a homily, “We are always either growing closer to God or further away from him. Which way are you moving?” This challenged me and really stuck with me. I realized that it doesn’t matter where we are currently at in our Faith life as much as direction in which we are moving. So Lent is a time for me to push my self a little bit more and to see what is keeping me from growing closer to God. It’s a time of spiritual pruning which can be painful but is so important to my Faith journey. That’s the paradox of Lent.

Tupperware Cup Story

2006-02-28T09:40:00.000-06:00

My wife called me at work the yesterday to share a funny little story. She normally takes a large Tupperware cup of water to work with her. Yesterday she had finished her water and refilled it with 7up for a change. As she was walking down the hall at the place she works with her beverage in her hand, a large bang was heard. She looked down and realized that the cover to her cup had flown off. Apparently her walking shook-up the 7up creating pressure on the lid till it burst off. It startled her pretty good since she carries her water around routinely without any such events taking place. A guy standing next to her said, “Jeez, I thought a bomb just went off.” Fortunately the only damage was some spilt 7up and everyone got a good laugh out of it.

Third Day Concert

2006-02-27T16:17:00.000-06:00

Being the oldest of eight children, it seems like my family is always celebrating someone’s birthday. A little over a year ago my wife and I decided that instead of getting everyone presents we would try to do something fun with them instead. So far we’ve been to Chucky Cheese, Disney on Ice, and quite a few movies. This weekend however, we tried something new as my wife and I took one of my teenage brother to his first rock concert.

The concert took place at the Target Center in Minneapolis and featured the Christian rock band Third Day. It was great concert and without an empty seat in the building. I’ve been to a few concerts where all the songs sounded so similar that I couldn’t wait for the concert to be over. Third Day did a nice job of mixing up fast and slower songs though and the time flew by. The audience was comprised of variety of people from families and middle aged people to teenagers and young couples. My wife commented that it’s pretty cool to be in a place with so many people with similar beliefs singing together and praising God.

It was definitely a powerful show. I saw Third Day over ten years ago when they were just starting out and they have come a long way musically. What’s cool though is that you can just see how deep their faith is. I like all kinds of music, not just Christian songs, but what a witness it is to see someone using their talents to glorify God. We may not all be called to proclaim our faith in such a bold manor, but I do hope that my faith is reflected in the way I live my life.

A couple in Love

2006-02-15T16:21:00.000-06:00

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated Valentines by going out to eat at a local restaurant. It’s always fun going out to eat and the food was wonderful. Some people might not care much for Valentine’s Day, viewing it as a time when stores try to make a few extra bucks by selling flowers, candy and cards but for me it’s much more then that. It’s a day to celebrate the beauty of love.

While eating last night my wife pointed out a young couple sitting across the room. A smile came to my face as I noticed they were both sitting on the same side of the table with no one across from them. I remember how when my wife and I were dating we would always sit that way as well. Of course now we are married and sit across from each other like normal civilized people. I remember that we often got weird looks from people when they saw us sit down side by side but that never mattered. We both wanted to be sitting as close as possible to each other.

I suppose one may conclude that our love has dwindled now that we sit across from each other, but just the opposite is true. Our love has simply grown deeper and stronger over the years. Just when you think it can’t get any better it somehow does. And that’s something to celebrate.

Pink Panther – Movie Review

2006-02-14T10:24:00.000-06:00

Ever since they started showing previews for the new Pink Panther movie, I’ve been eagerly awaiting to see it. I’ve never seen the previous Pink Panther movies but Steve Martin just looked hilarious. As we got closer to it’s release date, I started to wonder if my high expectations may keep me from enjoying the show as much as if I were to go to it without thinking it would be good. Was I setting myself up for disappointment?

This weekend was the test as my wife and I made it a date. My fears were quickly put to rest as we were thoroughly entertained and laughed the whole way through. It’s one of those movies that after watching it you keep thinking back to funny lines and just the thought brings a smile to your face. That being said it’s not going to win any awards for movie of the year as it has very little substance to it. Their is a storyline that ties things together but the movie is more about the characters and humorous lines then a deep plot. In a way it’s humor kind of reminded me of watching the Simpsons. Sure it has a storyline but that’s not why you watch it. If you are looking for some good slapstick comedy Pink Panther is the perfect show.

Connect-Four

2006-01-20T14:10:00.000-06:00

I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing a little handheld connect-four game lately. It’s a pointless use of my time but for some reason I do get some satisfaction from beating the computer (even if it is set to the easy mode). Last night I had a nice little winning streak going. Just as I was feeling confident in my ability to keep winning, I made a really stupid mistake and the streak was over. It didn’t bother me that I had lost as much as it bothered me that I had overlooked something so obvious.

Why do I share this? Well, as I sat there thinking about it, I realized that the mistakes I make in life are usually very similar to this game. I’m usually astute enough to avoid the major pitfalls of life but many times, especially as I begin to feel confident with something, I’ll totally overlook the obvious.

So how can I keep from overlooking such things? That’s a good question considering that I’ve made that same simple mistake in the game multiple times now. It keeps me humble even on such a trivial level. Confidence is a good thing but I’m also beginning to see that it can also be a weakness.

Last Holiday – Movie Review

2006-01-16T11:50:00.000-06:00

I’m not a big Queen Latifah fan but my wife wanted to see her latest movie, Last Holiday, so we made it a date Friday night. It really wasn’t that bad of a show. Granted it was very predictable and definitely won’t win movie of the year, but it was pretty funny. The jokes never got old and the story also had a good moral to it as it’s plot revolves around the main character dealing with only being given a few weeks to live. In our busy lives it’s good to have a little reminder about what’s important and how precious our time really is and this movie certainly does that. Sure the ending is a bit cheesy and expected, but in it’s own way I thought it was a good show.

“How’s it going?”

2006-01-10T11:07:00.000-06:00

This morning I came into work and greeted my coworkers just like any other day.

“Morning Bonnie! How’s it going?” I asked.

She immediately burst out laughing and told me that she knew that that was exactly what I would say. She added that if I ever wanted to give her a heart attack all I would have to do would be to use a different expression when I greeted her in the morning. I guess I’m becoming quite predictable. We had a good laugh and I joked that maybe that would be a good epitaph for my tombstone.

The funny thing is that we do fall into normal routines whether they be good or bad without even realizing it. It makes me wonder what else I routinely do or say subconsciously. As much as we like to be our own person and do things that are out of the ordinary, our minds seem to like the consistency of patterns and routine. Maybe I understand less about “how it’s going” with myself then with the people around me.

King Kong – Movie Review

2006-01-09T13:40:00.000-06:00

Friday night my wife and I went to the King Kong. I’ve never seen any of the previous versions so unlike most people the story was actually pretty new to me other then comments I had heard. It is a mighty long movie (think around 3 hours) but surprisingly the story moved along pretty well and I never had that feeling that I just wanted it to end. The special effects were incredible but never so overpowering as to distract from the storyline. It is a love story of sorts and the real power of the movie for me was in the fact that the audience develops some empathy with this monstrous beast.

Now don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t by any means a great movie in my onion, but it was entertaining and well done. Probably my biggest issue with the movie was the acting of Jack Black. While he did kind of fit with his character’s semi-insane personality, I never really fully bought the portrayal but instead kept waiting for him to crack a joke. I suppose some of this could be due to the fact that this is the first serious role I’ve seen him play, but it just bothered me that when I looked at his character I saw someone acting a part instead of the person in the story. In general though the characters well developed and outside of the corny final line, I did enjoy the film and would recommend it.

Pine Needle Pickup Day

2006-01-06T11:09:00.000-06:00

Last night we took down our Christmas tree. Now there is a big bear spot in our living room where it previously stood. It’s actually kind of a sad event to physically see the Christmas Season coming to an end for another year. It was a beautiful tree standing 9 feet tall with eight strings of lights (which took 3 hours to put on). As I recall the “old me” complained about how much work it was while we were putting it up, but now I actually felt a little sad about taking it down. Later in the evening I realized that if it was Christmas all year round then Christmas wouldn’t be such a special time. That’s the beauty of the changing seasons. In a way it’s the ordinary moments in our lives that make the extraordinary ones special.

The Science of Farting

2006-01-05T10:31:00.000-06:00

I’ve occasionally wondered if any scientific studies have ever been done on farting. Stuff like how many times an average person farts each day and how much gas they typically pass as well as the average length, loudness, and smellieness of one's flatulence. I’m not quite sure how one would conduct such a study but I think it would get peoples attention.

The other day my wife and I were having a normal conversation (that didn’t involve any bodily functions) when out of the blue our dog stood up briefly and then sat back down. I thought I smelt something and of course accused the dog as the culprit. Somehow this spawned a discussion about whether it’s easier to fart while standing or sitting. My wife claimed that she felt it was easier to fart while standing since when you are sitting on something, there is less room behind your but and thus your gas meets a greater resistance. Speaking from my own personal experience however, I would have to say that I find it easier to gas while sitting down. We got a good laugh out of the whole topic and never did research a definitive answer. Maybe some things are best left a mystery.

Armadillo Photos

2006-01-04T10:34:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite hobbies has turned into a new photo blog. Armadillo Photos is up and running. I've added a link to it to the side bar of this blog. Hopefully I will be able to post a new photo on most week days. My photos will undoubtedly cover a wide variety of subjects. Most will probably come from my digital camera which is a Sony Mavica CD500. It’s a few years old now but still takes great pictures and has enough manual controls to let me be creative. I also have a 35mm SLR camera (Cannon AE-1) so a few of those shots might creep in as well.

A little background about my photography experience: My mom got me started taking pictures for 4-H projects when I was little and I really enjoyed it and even won a few trips to the State Fair with it. Then in high school I took pictures of school sporting events for the local paper. My first year in college I worked for the school as a yearbook/publicity photographer then, after switching schools, I began working as at Wal-Mart as a portrait photographer. In college I earned BFA with a major in Graphic Design and a minor in Photography. Since then I haven’t really done much with photography so now I’m excited to pick it up again.

I hope you enjoy my photos. Photographs can say different things to everyone who looks at them so I would love to get feedback on what they say to you. Thanks for sharing my hobby with me.

The New Me

2006-01-03T10:23:00.000-06:00

So we begin a new year. Though I’m not real big on making New Year’s resolutions, this year I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to become a more optimistic person. In general I just want to look at the positives rather then dwell on the negatives when given the choice. I’m sure that 2006 will have it’s share of mistakes and difficulties but hopefully, with the right mindset, I can keep focused on the good. Life is too short to dwell on the bad and worry about what can’t be controlled. Now the old me would probably say, “Great idea but what are the chances of actually sticking to this for an entire year?” But the new me says, “What a great opportunity for me to focus on improving my attitude.” I like the new me better (and I think my wife will too).

Christmas Memories

2005-12-30T10:32:00.000-06:00

I have so many good Christmas memories. As a child I would get so excited that I couldn’t hardly sleep on Christmas Eve night. Finally, morning would come and I would wake my sister and together we would stampede down the steps to the living room to see if Santa had come. He always had and it was so magical to see all of the presents around the tree, the stockings filled with goodies, and the Santa’s plate of goodies gone. Then we had to wait for everyone to get up before opening our presents. That wait seemed to take forever but looking back, the anticipation was just as fun as when we finally opened the gifts.

Probably my favorite Christmas memory is sitting by the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve with my dad. Mom would send us to bed a bit early and then wake us to get ready for Midnight Mass. I remember coming into the darkened living room and seeing my dad sitting on the couch looking at our beautifully lit Christmas tree. He had genuine smile on his face as he sat their singing Christmas songs along with the radio which was playing softly in the background. He had me sit on his lap and I gazed at the twinkling lights. I could have sat there forever. Everything was so still and peaceful. Christmas was here.

Oh my head!

2005-12-27T15:21:00.001-06:00

I got together with my dad, 5 brothers and my sister’s boyfriend Christmas afternoon for a fun game of tackle football. Things sure have changed since I was little. Being the oldest I was usually the biggest person out in the yard. Now three of my brothers are taller then me and none of them go down as easy as they use to. I took a few good hits (one on a tackle and the other on a block). The one on the block really jarred my head pretty good. It felt like my head was an Easter egg with jelly beans rattling around inside. Now a couple of days later I’ve still got a lingering headache making me wonder if I had a minor concussion. Of course I kept playing and had a great time running and slideing arond in the snow. Definately made some good memories (and the best part is I can still remember them).

"Merry Christmas"

2005-12-27T15:21:00.000-06:00

A lot has been made this year about being politically correct and saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Initially this really bothered me as Christmas has ever since I can remember, been much more then just a religious holy day in this country. And why should people feel offended if they don’t celebrate Christmas and someone wishes them a Merry Christmas. Next thing you know we won’t be able say “Happy 4th of July” for fear that everyone in this world is not American and thus doesn’t celebrate it. It just seems that as a society we get too bent out of shape about these things.

However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that I myself was really getting bent out of shape over the issue. If society want to separate the holiday form the holy day that’s fine and maybe even for the best. After all the true meaning of Christmas has arguably been diluted with gift giving, lights, and other traditions. Not that any of these are bad in themselves but if people leave out the miracle of God becoming one of us in manger then it really is just a winter holiday. I guess to me Christmas has always been both a holiday and a holy day and I’d hate to remove either. I’ll continue to say “Merry Christmas” to people this time of year because that is what I celebrate and I hope others feel free to offer me their own holiday wish whatever their beliefs may be.

Quick Movie Reviews

2005-12-27T15:16:00.000-06:00

Due to the fact that I haven’t been posting much lately I have a multiple movies to review so instead of going into much detail and never getting anything posted, here are a few thoughts on each.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Overall a good show. Better then the last Harry Potter film (which wasn’t horrible but not great either). Still my favorite Harry Potter was the second film.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Highly recommend. This show was very well put together and entertaining to watch as it created the world of Narnia on the big screen. Has a great message as it stayed very true to the book and the acting was great. The action scenes were well done without showing blood and guts flying all over making this a great film for all ages.

Yours Mine & Ours
Just ok if that. I guess I never really felt like they established the characters identities and the whole thing felt very cheesy and poorly scripted.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2
As good as the first. This was a charming show that was well scripted and was good for plenty of laughs. It also had nice message as it dealt with letting go of kids as they grow up and the importance of family.

The Family Stone
A feel good ending too long in coming. It definitely wasn’t my kind of humor and the movie really seemed to drag. Just not for me.

Life Ticks On

2005-12-27T15:14:00.000-06:00

Someone mentioned to me the other day that they had heard of a watch device that functions as a timer counting down the average amount of time a person your age has left to live. They commented that it would be so depressing to actually have such a device and see the seconds ticking away. In a way I suppose it is a somewhat somber idea but to me it sounds like a good reminder that our bodies aren’t going to last forever and each moment is a precious gift. Now I’m not going to go out and purchase such a watch but it did make me think twice about how I’m spending my time. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking we have an unlimited amount of time. This isn’t a bad thing, but simply a fact of life. It’s what we do with the time that we have that counts.

Cat Attack

2005-12-27T15:11:00.000-06:00

Who would have guessed that my wife would be attacked by a ferocious feline while we were Christmas tree shopping this year. We were at a little farm with fresh cut trees not far from our home when all of a sudden I heard my wife scream. I turned to see a cat on her back near her shoulders with it’s clause dug into her coat. Being the manly man I am I sprang into action and pried the beast away throwing it to the ground. The cat seriously must have jumped five feet off the ground. Fortunately my wife’s jacket wasn’t damaged nor was she hurt…just more shocked then anything. We got a good laugh out of it and even found the perfect tree so all is well that ends well.

Our Gift to God

2005-12-27T15:10:00.000-06:00

“Who you are is God’s gift to you. What you become is your gift to God.” This was something that we heard in a Sunday homily while at the cathedral in Chicago. I don’t remember much about the rest of the homily, but I thought that this one line was quite profound and worth remembering.

Derailed – Movie Review

2005-11-22T16:18:00.000-06:00

Last week my wife and I had a day off and decided to take in a matinee. My wife has gotten into listening to mystery/suspense books on tape while commuting to work and thought that Derailed sounded like a similar type of story. As with the last movie I reviewed I didn’t have any expectations going into it and really hadn’t even seen a trailer. My mind was an open slate taking it all in. As it started out it didn’t seem like it was going to be all that great as it seemed to borrow the plot of a married man who is not feeling connected with his wife and ends up having an affair. I was pleasantly surprised though as the story unfolded. There were multiple twists to the plot and overall it was a well put together film. Even Jennifer Aniston, who I’ve never really thought was that great of an actress, did an excellent job with her role. I would caution people that the film contains some very mature content and I definitely wouldn’t take a child to it. All in all though I found it to be thought provoking and entertaining.

Blue Man Group Experience

2005-11-22T16:15:00.000-06:00

This was the first time any of us had seen the Blue Man Group and wanting to get there a bit early we decided to take the L-train which was a new experience for all of us. One of our friends said that it was better then the subway system in New York but I still wouldn’t want to take it at night by myself. Some of the stations seemed better then others but the one we got on was dimly lit and not very nice. There were five of us in our group and some strange looking guy came over and stood by us. We all just casually moved down a little bit further. Needless to say there were some crazy looking people there. It does zip you right along to where you need to go though. I was surprised how quickly we arrived to our destination.

On to the show though. This was the most unique concert I’ve ever seen. The three Blue Men say nothing verbally but still manage to communicate extremely well with each other as well as the audience. They even seemed to each have a unique personality which they expressed as they seemingly discover and experiment with all sorts of objects including marshmallows, Captain Crunch, Twinkies, cameras, switches, PVC pipes and more. All three were very good drummers and they played all sorts of percussion instruments including regular drums with paint splashing off them, PVC pipes which they strategically put together to mimic synthesizer sounds and even created rhythms by rhythmically chewing Captain Crunch. All of their routines were very creative and well done. Their final routine included toilet papering the entire audience (and we’re talking a ton of toilet paper) while using lots of strobes lights. It’s hard to explain but with everyone throwing toilet paper everywhere it made for quite the experience.

My favorite routine featured marquee signs that were like long sticks that the Blue Men held. They began with only one sign which scrolled text talking about a coffee house and how people go to this place along with lots of other people and then never talk to those people but instead converse with people miles away. I found all this actually quite thought provoking. It went on and they incorporated five additional marquees and began twirling them in an organized fashion to the beat of the song being played. Of course at this point you couldn’t read the words but I think that was the point of the whole thing. Or maybe it was pointless and just looked cool. Either way I enjoyed it immensely.

Other routines featured a lesson on animation, how modern plumbing works, creating paintings by spinning a canvas and spraying it with paint in their mouths, and a cynical lesson on how to be a rock star. I can’t imagine how they thought all of this stuff up. Watching these routines was like viewing a living artwork. I’m sure that each person who was at the show interpreted the routines differently by brining their own thoughts and experiences to it. To some people it may have seemed pointless but to me it was all very engaging and creative: A masterpiece I never would have imagined.

Welcome to the Windy City

2005-11-22T16:13:00.000-06:00

We took a little road trip last weekend to Chicago with some friends to go to a Blue Man Group show. It was my first time being in the Chicago other then at the airport or just driving through it on the interstate. Overall we had a great time. Our first encounter with a local resident actually happened in our car at a red light. The guy in the lane next to us must have noticed our out of state license plates and the map on my lap (my wife was driving and I was navigating). He tapped his horn lightly to get our attention and I rolled down my window.

“You folks lost?” he cheerfully asked. “Thanks but we know where we are at,” I replied. Then the light turned and we were off. What a friendly welcome I thought.
After we checked into our hotel we walked a few blocks to Navy Pier. It did remind us a lot of Duluth, MN but Lake Michigan’s water seemed a bit bluer to us. We just walked around for a while and then went through the stain glass museum. My wife talked me into to going into a little fun house with her which featured a mirror maze, static electricity generator, and other fun things. The highlight of Navy Pier was definitely the Ferris wheel though. As we stood in line to get on it, we noticed that all of the carriages on it had the McDonald’s golden arches logo. As I gave my ticket to the lady working there I asked if we could go in the McDonald’s one. She just smiled and said, “Sure you can.” A bit later as we boarded our carriage I heard someone tell me, “Make sure you have your seat belt on.” I looked down and of course there was no seat belt. Then I looked up to see the same lady I had joked with earlier with a big smile on her face. She got me back good.

A Little Visitor

2005-11-08T07:17:00.000-06:00

My wife and I got to baby-sit her brother’s 13 month old baby boy the other night at our home. For the first hour we had him he was more then content climbing up and down the steps in our slit level home (of course with us right by his side). He’s at a fun age and is curious about everything. We were surprised at how much he already understands about the world we live in. He loves remotes and definitely understands that they control the picture and sound on the TV. He also knew to push the little red “push here for music” label on a stuffed bear we had to make it sing. Then he would bob his head to the beet and get a big grin on his face. He also apparently loves to explore and made himself at home in a whicker basket that we normally keep stuffed animals in. What a cute kid.

Chicken Little – Movie Review

2005-11-07T15:23:00.000-06:00

This weekend my wife and I went to the new Disney movie, “Chicken Little.” I wasn’t expecting a lot going into it but my wife thought it might be a cute show. Sadly, even my low expectations were not met. It seemed to offer very little. I don’t want to give away the plot because there just wasn’t much to it. I will say however that it was extremely predictable and not very strong. On the positive side the animation was top notch. The negatives were many though:

Weak Plot – As already stated this was a terrible plot. It tried to have a moral to the story but when that meaning is that a parent should believe something as idiotic as the sky falling, that’s not a good start. In the end the parent feels obligated to “trust” his child and let him climb onto a building into harms way on blind faith. Please, that’s just stupid.
Poor Interpretation of the rules of baseball – Being a huge baseball fan this one really bothered me. At one point there is a play at home plate where the player is called out and the announcer says something to the effect that the game was a disappointing lose. Then the ump reverses the call and the announcer declares that the team who scored won the game. For them to have won the game it must have been tied prior to the runner scoring which means that the game would not have been over had the runner been out. This irks me when any subject is so blatantly misrepresented.
Too Scary for kids – Now we don’t have kids yet but at one point of the movie my wife turned to me and said, “I bet you every kid in this theater has nightmares tonight.” Maybe kids are harder to scare these days but much of the movie seemed like it would be very frightening to a three or four year old for sure. Being that this is suppose to be a kids show this can’t be a good thing.
Not funny – I laughed at one line at the very end of the movie and really didn’t hear much more laughter from the nearly filled theater we saw it in. Not only that but the show poked a lot of fun at an extremely overweight child pig. Is this the sort of thing you want your kids to laugh at?

In summary, seeing this show made me think that Disney has fallen a long way in the quality of their cartoon movies. This whole show seemed to trying to copy the success of shows like “Shrek” and “The Incredibles” and even tie in some of the mass hysteria of “War of the Worlds” but just didn’t even come close. For one you need a better story. I also think the level of realism hurt the story in the long run as it stood in harsh contrast to the absurd story line. I might believe it more if it was a more stylized world. For example in The Incredibles, many of the scenes were highly absurd as well but they worked in the world the movie created. I used to think that Pixar was all about the animation while Disney was driving the story lines but after “Chicken Little” it looks like Disney was just stamping their name on Pixar’s films. Good thing for Pixar that they dropped Disney. Too bad for Disney. They are definitely loosing the magic.

Reflecting on All Saints Day

2005-11-03T11:09:00.000-06:00

This week we celebrated the feast of All Saints Day. I’ve never given this Catholic feast day much thought but it struck me this year that this will hopefully be my own feast day one day. It’s a day set aside to honor all saints including those beatified by the Church, but especially those who only God knows for certain to be saints. As a Catholic I was always taught that all people are called to be saints (a saint being someone who is in perfect union with God—almost unachievable in this life). Very few people however, are given the official title of saint and a separate day of the year to be remembered on. So this feast is really about the ordinary saints that we hope to one day be. I know I’m far from a saintly person today but by God’s saving grace all things are possible. For now I sit in the congregation of the living and join with all saints, both popular ones and unknown ones, and praise God for His Mercy and Goodness.

Trick-or-treat

2005-11-03T11:06:00.000-06:00

81 trick-or-treaters came to our house this Halloween. That number was up from 60 the year before. Our little dog was ecstatic to see all these people coming to our house. She waited for them on the steps and would run to the door every time the door bell rang. I actually think she was having more fun then the kids who were getting the candy. We showed her that she could sit on the couch and look out the window to see the spooky creatures invading the neighborhood. That kept her entertained all night. It was good to see her in good spirits since the that last couple of days she had been noticeably not feeling well after her own trick-or-treating. She had found some small bags filled with M&M’s and candy corn (which my wife had made with little cards to give to people at her work) in a spare room which I had left open (oops). Needless to say that was her first exposure to such high amounts of sugar as she opened and devoured a couple of the begs. For a five pound bog that’s a lot of sugar. Between the kids and the candy I think Halloween is her favorite holiday.

The advice I give myself

2005-11-03T10:49:00.000-06:00

I had one of my favorite dreams the other night. It was a dream in which I was able to fly. It’s a wonderful feeling to be soaring in the sky. I suppose it can be likened to swimming in the air. It makes me feel like I haven’t got a worry in the world. I suppose I started flying in my dreams when I was a child, probably due to being obsessed with Superman and all of the Superpowers heroes. It’s not something I dream about a lot but when I do it always gives me such a feeling of peace. I actually recall more about this particular dream though then just my fun time in the sky. My wife was with me and we stopped at this little stone hut. Upon entering we were told (by whom I’m not sure) that a wise old man lived there and he soon greeted us. I asked him if he had any advise for us and he in turn asked what about.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

He looked at me and said, “Keep your marriage centered on Christ and his Church. And don't try to get ahead in the world, but just enjoy where you are at.”

After that we thanked him and flew off once again into the sky. I awoke shortly after this and was puzzled at how profound my subconscious had been in my sleep. Of course it’s important to plan for the future, but I think I too easily forget to just live in the present moment and enjoy the beauty of life. I might not be able to actually fly like Superman, but I can let go of my worries that hold me down and experience peace with where I’m at. Easier said then done, but I’m sure going to try.

10 Hour Days

2005-11-03T10:40:00.000-06:00

Last night while chatting with a friend, we started questioning why we as a society use the time measurements we do. Obviously a year is based on one revelation of our planet around the Sun and a day is based on one revolution of our planet on its axis. But why dived the year into 52 weeks? Why divide the day into 24 hours then each hour into 60 minutes and finally each minute into 60 seconds? We both agreed it would make more sense to use a system that divides into parts that are divisible by 10 similar to the metric system. While we didn’t do the math to figure it all out all the specifics we did figure that one would start this system of measuring time by dividing a day into 10 equal parts (these would be like hours but obviously longer). Then you would keep dividing those increments by 10 down as far as needed. Working the days into a system based on 10 that works with a year could be more of a challenge. I suggest changing the number of days in a week to 10 (keeping with the theme). Of course the extra three days should be added to the weekend in my opinion so that you work 5 days and then get 5 off. Off course pay should remain the same—like that’s going to happen. I think it’s safe to say we are stuck with the current format whether it’s really best or not. O well, it’s still interesting to think about.

This time next week...

2005-10-28T14:40:00.000-05:00

This time next week...will not be this time.

This time last week is of course the same as this time this week but thanks to daylight savings, the above statement is technically true. I bring it up firstly because you can’t often truthfully make such a crazy statement. My other reason though is to point out how arbitrary our measurements of time really are. Basically we as a society have come to except that 10:00 AM is a certain time of the day. This weekend we will be told that what would be 10:00 AM on Sunday for that last few months is really going to be 9:00 AM and most of us will except it and never think twice (might even enjoy the extra hour of sleep). I’m not saying that it is bad that we except these standards. If we didn’t, our world wouldn’t be very punctual or orderly. I just find it interesting. Time is what it is...but what is it. One thing is for sure, I doubt I’ll know the answer by this time next week (whenever that is).

Baseball Magic

2005-10-27T10:02:00.000-05:00

So the White Sox are the 2005 World Series Champions. I stayed up last night past my bedtime (which really isn’t as late as it use to be) to watch the final game between the Chicago White Sox and the Houston Astros. I really didn’t think the Astros would be able to come back and take the series but was hoping they could at least pull out a win to force a game five. It was a good game with no score going into the eighth inning. Then the Sox squeaked out a run and I knew at once that the game was over. The Astros really weren’t blown out in this series despite being swept. They just always came up one hit short of winning (kind of reminds me of my Minnesota Twins this year). Anyway, I was getting tired and seriously thought about going to sleep but decided to stick it out to the end.

Their is something magical about watching a team win a World Series. For me it reminds me of when I was 11 and the Twins won baseball’s ultimate trophy in 1991. Similar to how watching a wedding often takes me right back to my own wedding day, I was whisked back to that deciding game seven at the Metrodome. I had followed the Twins religiously that year listening to most of their games on my alarm clock radio while lying in bed. My Grandma would save the sports sections from the daily paper and I would cut out any Twins articles. I even kept my own game summaries for much of the year. It all came down to this one game however against the Atlanta Braves. Jack Morris pitched a heck of game going all ten innings without giving up a run. Kent Hrbek had started a 3-2-3 double play with bases loaded to preserve the shutout. Now with Dan Gladden on third and Gene Larkin batting I heard the words I’ll never forget.

“The Twins are going to win the World Series...The Twins have won!”

Larkin had lofted a base hit over the drawn in outfield and Gladden was greeted by a mob of players at the plate as he scored the winning run. The fans at the dome went crazy and we cheered with joy from our living room. What a wonderful memory that was. I was on cloud nine for the entire following week. Even if the Twins were to win the next 10 World Series, it could never come close to the magic of that moment.

Baseball is a wonderful game. It got me through a lot of tough years growing up. Listening to the games took me to a place where my everyday problems didn’t exist. When my dad and I weren’t getting along very well it was the one thing we could always talk about. But best of all, baseball gave me this magical moment I’ll never forget. Now in 2005 watching the Sox players jump on each other and scream and celebrate, I have to wonder if there is some young boy out there who just experienced the magic of his team winning the World Series. I cannot help but smile as I think about the time when I was once that boy. Congratulations to all White Sox fans. Enjoy the magic.

--A starry eyed boy (October, 1991) --

The shoes make the difference

2005-10-25T13:10:00.000-05:00

Last night my wife and I went to a Tonic Sol-fa concert which benefited the red cross. Tonic Sol-fa is one of our favorite musical groups and we’ve probably been to at least ten of their concerts in the last 5 years. They are quite unique as they don’t use any instruments other then their four voices and the occasional tambourine. What is amazing is how polished they sound together. As good as they are musically, they are also fun performers to watch. We recently saw them at the State Fair (which was fun, though they had a lot of technical problems). Last night’s concert was a whole different experience though as there couldn’t have been more then a couple hundred people there and we were in a much smaller (and indoor) space. I much prefer this more intimate setting. Even though I had seen them perform most of their songs at prior concerts, some of them seemed as if I was hearing them for the first time. Maybe it was auditorium or the way they sang the songs. Maybe it was the audiences reaction or my own outlook or maybe, just maybe it was....their shoes? You see after the concert my mother-in-law, who was also with us, had the group autograph her new CD and we overheard her ask, “Are those bowling shoes you guys are wearing?” To which one of them replied, “I think I’ve been known to bowl in them before.” So there you have it. It’s all about the shoes.

Are we there yet?

2005-10-20T15:54:00.000-05:00

We decided to take our puppy for a little hike at a State Park just down the road from our home. It was all up hill (literally) for the first part and our puppy stopped to rest more then once. Of course this was a good excuse for us to rest as well.

A morbid thought?

2005-10-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

With the wonderful Fall weather we’ve had lately, my wife and I decided to do some landscaping in our yard. She had picked up 84 tulip bulbs and was originally planning to line one edge of our property with them. We ended up deciding to plant 7 lilac bushes along the property edge instead though and so ended up planting the tulip bulbs around our trees.

I could go on about the details or our earthmoving ventures, but I’m already starting to bore myself so I better hurry this along. We ended up moving six day lilies to make space for the lilacs. As I dug them up I found many bulb like roots. Not wanting them to come back up in the future, I tried to pull them out by hand. Usually this didn’t work however so I would dig further with my hands and little garden shovel and try pulling again.

The rich, black soil felt moist on my hands. I encountered plenty of earthworms and other little bugs that apparently had made this area their home. It struck me that someday my hand, which was moving this dirt, will one day be buried by it and gradually decompose and become one with it. What a morbid thought you say. Yes it’s not a fun thing to think about but somehow I felt very much at peace with it.

So often we get caught up in our everyday lives and think the world revolves around us. But the truth is that whatever your religious convictions may be, it doesn’t. It lasted long before us and will continue after us as if nothing changed. Of course the choices we make do have an effect the future. That dirt was powerless in remaining put when I decided to take a shovel to it and the flowers and bushes we planted will effect the landscape for years to come. But someday our bodies will be just as powerless as the soil on which we walk. Kind of puts everything in perspective a bit.

Now I’m not suggesting that we just sit back and feel sorry for ourselves due to this fact that one day our bodies will be reduced to the status of dirt. Today each of us holds a shovel in our hands that will play a part in shaping the world around us. It is actually quite a beautiful concept. This is our time. What shall we plant for future generations to see.

A Memorable Move...

2005-10-06T11:19:00.000-05:00

My wife and I helped her brother’s family move to a new apartment last Friday. It was quite the experience and I really felt bad for her brother as they kept encountering one problem after another. Most of the problems were due to lots of red tape that their application had to go through before they could get approved. The fact is they were given keys and had half there stuff moved in before they were told that they needed to supply more information to get approved. What a hassle.

We got to their old place after work on Friday and found them frantically trying to get an old computer to work. It was coming up in safe mode and wouldn’t let them print out some records they needed. My wife’s brother asked me if we could connect the hard drive to their newer computer to get the stuff they needed off it. I’ve done this a few times in the past so we decided to give it a try. We opened both computers up and took the old hard drive out, set the jumpers to a slave configuration and cabled it into their new computer. It worked like a charm and before you know it we had the info they needed. They still weren’t officially approved to move in but we decided we’d better move them anyway as their lease was up the next day on their current apartment.

Fortunately their new place was only a 15 minute drive down the interstate and we were able to get most of their stuff packed on our first trip. My wife’s brother took the trailer back to get the final remaining items while the rest of us finished unpacking what we had brought. When he got back with the final load we started walking towards the trailer to unload it and I smelt a strong skunk smell.

“Something sure smells good,” I said sarcastically.

“That was me,” my wife’s brother said. I looked at him thinking he was joking. “No, really,” he went on. “I hit a skunk on the way over.”

Not thinking much of it we continued unloading stuff until we came to the final item, their mattress. As we carried it into their new place I realized the skunk smell had come with us. Yep, their mattress being on the bottom of the trailer, had taken the brunt of the skunk smell. We sprayed it with febreze and laughed about it which is about all we could do at that point.

I’m happy to say that their application did get approved so they can finally breath normal knowing that they are in their new home. Of course if that skunk smell is still lingering, then I guess they better be sure to breath through their mouths for now.

Artwork of Life

2005-09-28T10:03:00.000-05:00

I pulled up to a stoplight this morning. Rain was gently falling and beading on my windshield and was illuminated in a pulsing manor by a red turn signal from the car in front of me. It was one of those moments where everything seemed to be in synch with the world around me. It was like I was experiencing a planned work of art.

The thought then occurred to me that my life is like an artwork. In a way we are all participants in a performance art each day we live. This artwork can encompass joy and suffering, and every kind of emotion possible. Like a work of art, our lives can mean different things to different people. Some people may see us as an inspiration, while others may not hardly even notice us. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and everyone who we come in contact with will have a slightly different perspective of who we are. Like an artwork our lives meaning can change when juxtapositioned with others and when viewed under different light or over the passage of time. The wonderful thing in all of this is that we play a big part in the creation of this artwork. Sure we can’t control everything but there is plenty that we can control and we can definitely influence what direction our lives take.

It’s also interesting to note that some of the best artworks that really touch and move people aren’t the “pretty” ones we put over our fireplace, but the ones that are full of distress and at times are difficult to look at. No one likes to experience pain but the truth is it will always be part of our lives and it is not without merit.

What kind of artwork will our lives be? We each hold a pallet full of colors in one hand and a paint brush in the other. What we do with them is up to us.

Masterpiece in the Sky

2005-09-06T09:51:00.000-05:00

This weekend we had a pretty good thunderstorm at our home. For some reason I always love watching storms. It's beautiful to just take it all in as the storm develops. This storm started around dusk so the sky was filled with amazing color. You could hear the thunder rolling in the distance and feel the air change as the storm came closer. I sat out on the deck with our small dog and my camera in hand and just took the whole thing in. Finally it started gently raining. The rain gained intensity and began to downpour so I retreated inside and watched as the storm passed. Later that night while in bed sleeping, my wife and I awoke to loud crashes of thunder. The storm was back in full force. I opened the curtain window, grabbed my camera and witnessed an amazing lightning show. My wife, who was trying to sleep, thought I was a bit crazy and she was probably right. Most people probably don't enjoy watching storms as much as me. When viewing such a phenomenon, I think to myself what a small part I play in this world and realize just how much is out of my control. You never know what will come next when watching a storm and as soon as it can come, it can also be gone. To me watching a storm is like watching a live work of art that will never be replicated again. Mother Nature is quite the artist and what a masterpiece she created.

State Fair 2005

2005-09-02T16:15:00.000-05:00

No deep thoughts here. Just a lot of fun at the Minnesota State Fair. A couple of friends (pictured here) joined my wife and I for a fun day. Highlights included: splashing in puddles with our car in parking lot (we got some great looks from the people guiding us in...I think they were a bit jealous), fun rides, good (but not for you) food, and an open air concert with Tonic Sol-fa. Overall a very fun time.

Thanks for the Memories

2005-09-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks back my wife and I decided to use some Twins tickets we had laying around. We ended up going with a whole crew of people including my dad, one of my brothers, and some good friends from ours college days. The game was nothing special. In fact, in true Twins fashion, the home team ended up loosing on a grandslam in the 10th inning. It was a memorable outing for me though thanks to what happened prior to the game.

As I entered the Metrodome through a revolving door, I looked around to see where everyone was. Standing a few feet away from me was my father and he had a look on his face that I couldn’t recall seeing before. He said, “Look, it’s some of the old Twins players.” Sure enough no more then 20 feet in front of us were some former Twins. They were posing for pictures with fans who had formed a short line.

Now it just so happens that I had at the last minute before the game decided to bring my digital camera. I usually don’t take it to ball games but something told me I should. My wife told my dad we had the camera with us and that he should go get in line and we would take his picture for him. His eyes grew larger and were filled with excitement as he and my brother went and stood in line to meet the former players.

You could just see the thrill of the anticipation building as my dad got closer and closer. Next thing you know he was shaking the players hands and posing for his picture. The expression on his face looked like that of a child’s on Christmas morning. Even though my dad stood there in a 52 year old’s body, I was able to catch a glimpse of him as a young boy. I started to think how these where his heroes growing up and how to him this was a childhood dream come true. It was beautiful to see.

I clicked a few pictures and the moment was over. Dad came up to us with a huge smile still beaming from his face. “That was Tony Oliva, the greatest Twins hitter ever,” he said. “What did you say to him,” I asked. My dad replied, “Just thanks for the memories.”

“Thanks for the memories,” I thought to myself. My Father had given me a memory that I wouldn’t soon forget.

The little things...

2005-08-03T16:17:00.000-05:00

After discussing the possibilities of our dreams being real in my last post it's time to move on to the lighter topic of my favorite baseball team...The Minnesota Twins.

First I better tell you that I am a die hard fan and was so even in the mid to late 90s when there wasn't really anything to cheer about. They looked and played hopelessly over that streak but like a good armadillo I still kept up with how they were doing. Of course the last 4 years they have actually been fun to watch again and have even received a reputation of doing things the "right way." This includes developing good players in the minors, emphasizing pitching and defense, and being smart running the bases. Unfortunately watching the Twins in 2005 has been a tough pill to swallow.

Maybe the fact that many baseball experts picked them to win the World Series just got my hopes up two high. They do have a superb pitching staff, some decent veteran outfielders and promising group of young players in the infield. For all of that though they pretty much have stunk all year. And what's missing? It's those same little things that made them so much fun to watch the last few years. They aren't moving the runners, getting clutch hits, or being smart on the bases. And defensively they make so many mental errors that they are just asking to loose. Many fans have insisted that one more good hitter could solve their problems but this wouldn't fix the real issues.

Yes it's a tough year to be a Twins fan, but there must be something we can learn from all of this. Maybe it's the importance of the little things...Not just in baseball, but in our everyday lives as well. When we take care of the little things, the bigger ones have a tendency to fall into place as well. Let's do ourselves a favor and not worry about the stuff we can't controls (like getting one more good hitter). There's plenty we can control like our attitude and relationships with the people in our lives. Spend time talking with friends and family...go for a walk and enjoy the sunset. Life is so much more then a baseball season. Don't miss out on it.

Am I dreaming?

2005-08-01T16:11:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in my living room last night when I saw my dog become frightened by a moving light. It rested by the couch and my wife and I stared at each other in disbelief. We knew it was a ghost as we could feel its presence. I got up and tried to chase it away and causing the ghostly light to dart down the hall into our bedroom where it produced a flash of light. When I got to the room it was dark and the light switch wouldn’t work. “The ghost must have somehow blown the fuse,” I thought to myself. Then I caught a glimpse of the creature in the upper corner of our window and I could tell it was very upset with me. I raced at it and tried to scare it by screaming as loud as I could.

All of a sudden I heard my wife’s voice calling my name and asking me if I was ok. Yes, of course it was just a dream and I had been tossing and turning throughout it. Apparently I let out a real scream though which startled my wife. After assuring her I was fine (that’s always been questionable I suppose), I got a drink of water and went back to bed.

Then I started thinking. The dream still seemed so vivid and I realized that for a brief moment my dream and my real life had combined. As real as it had all seemed I was glad that I had come to my senses and back to reality. Or had I? What if this reality in which I live is just a dream in my mind while the dreams I have at night are what is real?

This can not be I told myself. After all, when I think about my dreams they are always disjointed and illogical. But, then I began to ponder how there have been times in my dreams that I have been aware that I am dreaming and that I would wake up eventually. I’ve even dreamt that I had woke up and in actuality was still asleep. There obviously is some kind of connection between our dreams and real life experiences but maybe we have the purposes of the two reversed.

Isn’t it possible that we could exist in a world without logic? Perhaps even as I type this, I am living in a world that my subconscious has created. It would make sense that if our dreams are our true reality that we would attempt to create a logical world for ourselves in our minds to add some order to our existence. Who am I to say that this isn’t possible. Maybe our minds even convince us that our dreams aren’t real to protect us from the true experiences. Of course if this is true then no one but me will ever read this nor does it really matter. All I can say is, “If I am dreaming right now, SOMEBODY PLEASE PINCH ME.”

History of the Armadillo

2005-07-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

Hello World,

Welcome to the "Remember the Armadillo" blog. Back in my first semester of college, some friends and I decided to form a flag football team and one guy had the idea of calling us the Armadillo Society. We were terribly overmatched in every game we played and only a couple of times the entire season did we even score. Other teams would laugh at us, then feel bad for us, but in the end they were laughing and joking along with us. Yes that's right, we actually managed to still enjoy the games despite getting our buts whipped continuously. To us the game was about more then the final outcome. It was about having a good time doing the best we could with the talent we had.

Ahh the spirit of the Armadillo...always optimistic and cheerful in the face of hopelessness and defeat. The team is long gone but what it stood for lives on. As this blog begins, this is the spirit I wish to embrace. Who knows where it will take us. Like life lets just enjoy the process.