New Blog

In case anyone still checks / or is subscribed to this thing, I have started up a blog again, but at a different address. It's up at www.agbaines.com

How many miles must a car walk down?

Figure 1: Volvo, parked in my parking space, at my high school graduation

The year is 1999. I'm partying like its 1999. It's the year that Napster is introduced, the Matrix and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace are released in theaters, and Bill Clinton is acquitted in his impeachment trial. But most importantly, it is the year that I turned 16 and (as destiny would have it), got my first car, a 1998 Volvo S70. It was purchased used at about a little under 50,000 miles from a good family friend, his holiness the (then) Bishop of the Florida Bahamas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. That's right, I drive the Bishop-mobile (and it's not a crappy Fiat!)

Flash forward a couple of years, it's 2001 and I leave for college. I'm forced to be separated from my ride for a year before I can bring it up with me to the frozen north. Beyond the emotional toll brought on by separation and longing, there is a physical price to be paid as well by leaving it unprotected in my father's hands, where he manages to put ~25,000 miles on it in one year driving back and forth between Florida and North Carolina. But Volvo and I are once again reunited my Sophomore year in Boston at about the 75,000 mile mark. We have been together ever since.

Today Volvo is enjoying life in 2006 as a Texan. It's been a bit of an adjustment for Volvo. Instead of being (literally) buried in snow, it now faces heat that (literally) melts the stickers off its windows. But it has driven proudly, completely unintimidated by the hordes of trucks that constantly surround it. But not only has it adjusted, it has thrived. The other day it hit a crowning achievement:

Figure 2: It's perfectly safe to use a cameraphone while driving

Yep, there is now an additional digit on my car's odometer. It happened on Interstate 635 while I was on my way to visit Lindsey. This car has been a workhorse. It's the only one I've ever owned. In the 7 years we've been together, it has lived in 4 states, traveled 50,000+ miles (half of which I actually drove), and has seen my sister drive 3 different cars (how did that happen by the way?). It has survived temperatures that has shown the thermometer having both a 3rd digit and a negative sign. It has suffered being towed twice, two fender benders, and numerous parking tickets. But thanks to being a Volvo, it has never once enticed a policeman to pull it over for speeding (although I most certainly deserved a couple as I have blown past a a few speed traps going 10-15 over without noticing them).

Volvo for Life

I'm through with faking it

Has never been able to origami

Loves to get trashed and have novel romances

Says random things while eating ice cream, like "I want sex!"

Spent 10 years secretely trying to date high school girls

Believe me, I've tried to origami - on my own and with others. I've read books, looked up info online, but there's just no manual that's right for me. Now I've found someone who's willing to work with me, so I'm hopeful. He'll ask, "What do you want to make?" I've always been preoccupied with making something really good, and my automatic response used to be "What do you like to make?" But I'm learning how to honestly answer that question.

* * *
I think I want to make a little origami beaver. I really recomend practicing on your beaver to anyone who is having problems origami-ing.

How did the cookie know?

Ok, so as many of you have already noticed from the Facebook news feed, I am now in a relationship. And let me just say, what the hell do you people do, sit around with a bowl of popcorn and watch it like a news ticker? I mean really. I briefly considered removing the "Interested in: women" line from my profile since I have now found one, but then I shuddered thinking about the sort of responses I'd get once "Andrew is no longer interested in women" hit the newswire. But yes, with the acquisition of a hot girlfriend operation "Don’t Be A Pathetic Loser" is officially accomplished (I do realize that, as with most accomplished missions, I will be spending the foreseeable future fighting in a losing battle on that front). I'd hang a banner if I had one. Oh, and that really is the fortune I got in my cookie for last Thursdays Chinese dinner. Freaky huh.

Her name is Lindsey and she is a 21 year old alumna of Texas Tech. She is a native Texan, speaks with a drawl, has big hair, wears a cute little pink cowgirl hat that matches her boots, and has promised to teach me how to rope a steer. Ok, not really, but she is a native Texan and I fully expect her to grudgingly admit that she can rope a steer after she reads this. And yes, she knows about and reads this blog, which explains (along with the fact that I'm lazy) why I haven't posted anything in the past month. I inevitably would have ended up writing about her, and I wasn't quite sure I wanted to tip my hand. I also didn't want to freak her out and chase her off by an (albeit favorable) analysis of our developing relationship through the use of the Punnett square (totally 'ab' by the way). But now I feel that if she is going to be sticking around for a while (and I plan to hold on to her for as long as I can keep her from realizing that she's too good for me) it's safe, and she is going to find out about me and my nerdly ways anyway. She has already seen the Enterprise centerpiece on my table, the Next Generation cast picture on my wall, and even said that she thought the "Nerds Get Chicks" magnet on my fridge was cute. Even if she was just being polite I at least didn't get a "back away slowly" (or run away screaming) response, which is really as good as I could ever hope for, so I'm happy. But seriously, she's smart (graduated top of her class at Tech in only 3 years), has a good sense of humor (or a bad one...she thinks my jokes are funny), beautiful (see picture…this one's self explanatory), and we have a great time together. Pretty good combo.


The other major event that has happened in my life recently is that last week I celebrated the one year anniversary of my employment at Bell Helicopter. I received a promotion, and I have finally cast aside of the diminutive "Associate" from the front of my title and am now just plain old "Engineer." I'd like to thank the academy. It is nice to know that from now on and adjectives that may potentially get attached to my title (like "Senior" or "Principle") will be uplifting instead of degrading.

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

A fun thing happened to me at work today.  It started because my boss Henry is out of town for most of this week because his girlfriend’s father died.  Henry and I are the two structural analysts working on the wings for Bell’s Quad-Tilt Rotor (QTR) concept bid for the military Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) contract.  Henry is the big shot and I am the lackey, but that of course means that I do most of the actual work (as lackeys often do).

Well apparently Mondays are the usual days for the Integrated Product Team (IPT) meetings.  IPT is just a fancy term for “groups”, for example I am working on the wing structure, another group is doing the nacelle, another the transmission, etc..  Each Monday all the big shots of the IPTs get together and report what they have done and need to do to the even bigger shots that are in charge of the overall project.  As a lackey I never go to these meetings.  I’m not even ever really cognizant of when and where they take place.  

I was blissfully working away in my little cubicle today when Bob (one of the Henry-level big shots from another group that I have been coordinating with recently) comes up to me and says “Could you come to the IPT meeting?  With Henry out we don’t have any structures guys there.”  Um, ok.  So I quickly grab a pen and a notepad and start walking with him to the conference room.  On my way over there I begin thinking that I didn’t really know anything about this meeting.  I had never been to one.  I didn’t have anything prepared for it as up until this moment I didn’t really know that the meeting existed, let alone that I would be going to it.

So we get to the conference room.  It readily becomes apparent that Bob didn’t just stop by my cube and invite me to the meeting on his way over (That was the theory I developed, presumably so that I would be aware and could tell Henry of anything important that came out of it).  It was glaringly obvious that the meeting was well in progress, and that Bob, in fact, had been sent to get me.  Crap.

All the seats at the main table had been filled, and most the chairs around the perimeter of the room were also taken.  I recognized a handful of the people there, and worked closely with a few of them, but for the majority of the people I did not know.  Several of the groups there I have never had any reason to ever interact with (drive systems, for example, have nothing to do with my wings). The groups I do work with were represented by their big shots where as I, as a lackey, tend to interact with the other lackeys.  So I find an open chair, and as I sit down Tom (le grand fromage) says, “ok young man, tell us about the wings” (oh, and young man was a very apt term since I think the next youngest person was at least 10-15 years my senior, and the average was well above that).

Let me pause to take a moment to put things in perspective.  I find that titles can be very confusing, and a better measure of a person’s seniority in the company is their office space.  I, at the bottom of the totem pole with the title “Associate Engineer”, have a small little cube with a desk on either side.  I have to slide my chair back against one desk in order to open the drawers of the opposing desk.  Henry (my boss), who has been working at Bell since the beginning of the Vietnam War, has the title of “Staff Engineer.”  Between his title and mine are: Engineer, Sr. Engineer, Engineering Specialist, Sr. Engineering Specialist, and Principle Engineer.  I am not entirely sure about the order and it’s possible that I left something out (and I know that there are little sub promotions you go through at each level before your title changes), but those are ranks I know are between he and I and are adequate in showing that there is a fairly large gulf.  Henry has a bigger cube that is large enough for three other people to sit in comfortably for a small meeting/discussion.  Henry’s boss Bennie, the Chief of Airframe Structures (high enough to show up on some of the more detailed org. charts), has an actual interior office with a door.  This is why I often claim that my long-term career goal is to have a door (to help motivate me a coworker of mine once taped a box flap across my cube’s entrance to act as a door, but unfortunately the masking tape failed around the second or third time the door was opened).  

I have only been in the Tom’s office once.  It was because I was walking with Henry when he stopped by Tom’s office to ask a quick question.  To start with, Tom has his own secretary who paused from answering his telephone calls to say that we could go in and see him.  Upon entering I saw that the office was roughly a little over twice that of Bennie’s.  It had very nice carpeting, and low and behold, a window (maybe two, don’t quite remember).  The chairs, even the extra ones he had for other people to sit in, were those fancy high backed leather ones.  He had nice wooden cabinets filled with books, framed posters and artwork on the walls, etc..  Very posh.  And he’s the one asking me for a status report at this meeting.  In other words, if the company was based on a feudal system and he were a Duke or something (presuming that the CEO is king), then that would put me somewhere on the order of being just short of a peasant child’s pet squirrel.

To make matters worse, the wings are kind of in a state of flux right now.  I had spent around eight months developing and refining these wings, fine-tuning every little detail to maximize efficiency and minimize weight while looking at a plethora of load cases and crash conditions.  I had a pretty good idea of the weight, safety margins, everything.  But then, about three weeks ago, we found out that a requirement for the drive shaft and mid wing gearbox interfered with one of my main structural spars and would effectively cut it to Swiss cheese, so we had to take it out.  Also, the method of attaching the wing to the fuselage had to change because it was too soft for dynamic stability and handling quality.  In essence, a huge design change in the wing had to take place (This coincides perfectly with a major report and presentation for the contract bid being due at the end of August).  So I am madly trying to resize all the components of the wing, but with having only worked on it a couple of weeks as opposed to the months I spent on the last one it means I am not near the same level of detail.  The redesign is heavier without the spar and since I haven’t had time for an in-depth analysis many my preliminary estimates have had to be conservative, meaning that my first guesses are heavier than what it would actually have to be.  Couple this with a miscommunication error between our group and the weights group on the last wing leading them to believe it was lighter than it actually was, we are showing a significant increase in wing weight (note: this is bad).  Anyway, with the report being due real darn soon now the weight of the wing is a cause of concern, and here I am having to talk about it completely unprepared in front of a dude with a secretary and a window.

I’m telling Henry he owes me a doughnut or two when he gets back.

It is kind of fun, and haiku is a good way to waste time at work.

No post in long time.
Had nothing to talk about,
so I wrote nothing.

I am very bored.
Lacking anything better,
I write in haiku

Haikus are poems!
And I hate all poetry!
high school taught me that.

But do not worry,
For in the poems I write
no one eats peaches.

It's not that hard to write things in haiku.
A sonnet would have been more hard to do.

I think its eggsceptional

According to this
article from the Associated Press , the CBS broadcasting corporaton has found a wonderful new way to advertise. They will be teaming up with your local grocer to egg on consumers to watch their network. You may soon find the eye logo looking back at you from all the eggs in your basket. It is apparently the first step in a campaign to get advertisements into peoples homes, meaning that if successful they could presumably expand to other food stuffs like cereal, milk, and chicken (which many analyists argue should have come first).

I think its great. There could be a huge market for this (a super one if you will). I see a great potential for targeted advirtising. On the name brand grade A eggs you advertise for the more snooty shows (like Frasier) and then you can put most anything on UPN on the generic grade B and lower eggs. Some research is obviously needed to see which target audiences buy the white eggs and which ones buy the brown eggs.

"I asked my friend who she was. He said 'oh, that's Katie Baines. She's way out of your league.' But I kept trying and eventually I got lucky" - Matt

Once again I have failed to update this thing in a while. And to all the people who came out of the woodwork to reveal that they read this and to complain that there hasn’t been any new posts (and there are a surprising number of you), I gave them all the same response: My life has been amazingly boring lately and have not had anything to write about. Somehow I can’t make “I sat around my apartment all day and ate some hot pockets” sound very exciting.

Well finally one of you did something about it. My cousin Katie decided to get married so that I’d have something to talk about. You can all thank her for taking one for the team. It’s good to see someone finally step up and take responsibility for my actions.

So this weekend I flew to New Jersey to bear witness to her matrimony to a guy named Matt. My Dad’s side of the family is not overly close and pretty much only get together for weddings and funerals this was a rather rare chance to see and catch up with everyone. And what better way to catch up than to drink copious amounts of alcohol?

Yeah, so after the rehearsal dinner on Friday my sister, a few of my cousins, and I found ourselves in a slightly inebriated state (read: totally wasted). It was at the rehersal dinner, by the way, that Matt said the little gem of a quote I have in my subject line in a speech describing how fortunate he was to have met Katie. We all laughed at the embaressed boy for several minutes. Anyway, I haven’t had this much to drink in a very long time and I don’t think I have ever had before without invoking the name of “Team Castle.” It really wasn’t our fault, though, as we were present at an after party in one of the rooms of Katie and Matt’s friends from Dartmouth (which, by the way, is where they both attended college). As you are probably well aware, there is absolutely nothing to do at Dartmouth. The most exciting thing that was ever in New Hampshire was the Old Man in the Mountain and even that decided to collapse rather than be forced to remain there. As such they waste away any free time they have by consuming enough alcohol so that they will be sufficiently drunk to forget that they are, in fact, freezing there asses off in New Hampshire. They came well prepared with a wide selection of tasty beverages and were constantly offering refills to cups that started to borderline empty. They weren’t always too particular about what the refill consisted of though, resulting in some strange concoctions including a lovely red wine, Jack Daniels, and Pepsi combination that my sister found herself with. The fact that it didn’t taste too bad should have been an indication of something. They were very good people though, most of whom were rowers and as such enjoyed sharing with me a rousing portrayal of the MIT Launching Cheer. I was also able to impress them with my wonderful MIT trained ability to open a beer bottle with my brass rat, which came in handy when there was not a bottle opener to be found.

The next morning was fun. It started with a loud banging sound. My dad apparently thought it would be funny at 9am to knock on the door to the room I shared with my sister and to claim that he called 45 minutes earlier telling us to be ready. He even was bold enough to say that it was I whom he talked to. I still don’t know how he managed to sneak in and move the phone off the hook and sneak out again. We informed him that his prank wasn’t funny and to leave us alone. After much fussing he finally relented and didn’t bother us again until noon when my parents wanted to have lunch with us. After assuring them repeatedly that we were not hung-over we ventured outside to an overcast day that was somehow blindingly bright. Forcing down enough lunch as to not arouse suspicion was rather painful (and of course all for naught now as they read this, but if they get upset now I’m safely 100s of miles away. /em waves to his sister who is staying with them). The rest of the day consisted of drinking a lot of water, trying not to even think too much about eating or drinking anything else, and getting ready for the actual wedding.

The ceremony was beautiful of course, and the reception was fun. I love my Aunt Linda (Katie’s mom) very much and she did a wonderful job planning everything. I was very amused though to find out that even through all the planning and stress associated with preparing for a wedding like this she still obviously spared some time to consider me. Upon entering the reception and greeting her in the receiving line, she asked me the ubiquitous “so have you met any pretty young girls in Texas yet?” question. I of course was forced to answer in the negative. She then immediately gestured behind me and asked, “by the way have you met this girl, one of Katie’s friends from Dartmouth?” Aunt Linda has always been a bit of a match maker and apparently when someone is pathetically single for as long as I have been now there becomes less need for subtlety. I was also amused to find my assigned dinner seat to be between two extremely attractive young girls. The great awkward moment came when one of them made a comment about how one of her brothers was sitting at another table surrounded by some girls, an obvious set up. She then glanced at me and my younger male cousin sitting on her other side and quiped "as I assume this is." She was a blonde rising senior at UCLA and the other was her brunette sister-in-law. Yeah sister in law, as in married to her other brother (who was seated on the sister-in-law’s other side), so it wasn’t all that perfect. And the hot blonde ended up flirting through dinner with my cousin so it was all for naught. I can take some solace that she too also faced rejection at the end of the night when my cousin was finally forced to admit that he already had a girlfriend. Perhaps it would have been better if my sister were seated at her other side instead of my cousin so she could have been a wingman instead of a distraction (my sister was at another table), but I take it my Aunt did have some other things to worry about this past weekend than my social life. She was obviously disappointed in me though at the end of the night though when I was forced to admit to her that I had not met anyone that night.

Well that’s about it. Best wishes to Katie and Matt. If you would like more stories like this one, make sure that interesting things happen to me. Especially if you or someone you know happens to be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. Think how entertaining that post would be.

Away, you three inch fool!

While perusing some news sites online, I came across this little gem from the Associated Press (available here from the Washington Post). A judge found a convicted sex offender lacked sufficient height at 5'1" to go to jail and sentenced him instead to a period of house arrest with electronic surveillance. If you ask me, this decision is a little short sighted. While I am sure the judge was well intentioned, this ruling has a major shortcoming that simply cannot be overlooked. It sends a dangerous precedent that vertically challenged individuals (I hope I used the right politically correct term...I know some people can be quite short tempered about things like this) can duck under the law. It will encourage the growth of crime from such individuals as they are emboldened by the leniency they face to commit acts that a taller individual would stop short of committing.

Let me remind you that this is no small offence. It's not like the guy is getting this as a tiny slap on the wrist in lieu of a short term jail sentence. This is a convicted sex offender who was apparently involved with small children (although I must confess that I am a little ignorant of the exact circumstances as the article is quite short gives only skimpy details). And while I understand that space to house prisoners is in short supply in our overcrowded penal system, I am simply not convinced that house arrest will keep him on a short enough leash. The severity of his crime could easily dwarf the crimes of many individuals currently serving time in prison. But yet while they are in jail complaining about the meals , he sits comfortably at home watching SportsCenter highlights of Miguel Tejada (SS for the Baltimore Orioles) and dining on filet mignon with a strawberry shortcake dessert.

In short, it is a clear violation of equal protection under the law.

What do I do now? Jack's off until January

The show "24" on Fox just aired it season finale, officially bringing to a close our fifth day shared with Agent Jack Bauer. This was a very good season, although I'm still pissed that Tony died. I am amazed by the fact that for the last 4 months I was suffering through the weekends awaiting anxiously for Monday. And of course in the last 10 minutes a plot turn / cliffhanger took place to draw us into the next exciting season. Unfortunately Jack will be off the air until January when the next season starts, so I will now have to wait until then, fittingly enough when I turn 24, to find out what's going to happen next. It's all well and good to play up hype and keep interest and all, but television producers need to learn that an 8 month long cliffhanger is just not cool. Damn it. Mondays are officially going to suck again as my life will have less meaning for the next 8 months (and for those of you who do not think that 24 is the meaning of life, just anagram it and see what you come up with. I know. Freaky huh).

What makes this whole thing worse is that the season finale of House is tomorrow. With bowling done until September, my Tuesdays are officially shot. Not to mention my Fridays are wrecked until October when Battlestar Galatica starts up again. Jeez. The series finale of Alias was today as well, but that show started sucking when Jennifer Garner got pregnant. When your entire premise is "watch this hot girl kick ass" it sort of loses something when she's in the third trimester.

Why do all the good TV shows have to stop at the same time? Don't the television executives know that they need to have something we can watch to fill the void left by a non-existant social life?

I guess there's always video games.

I have to vend my anger

Why is it that we keep opening ourselves up to be hurt over and over again in the same manner? Everybody does. Some people keep dating the same type of losers. Some bounce from dead end job to dead end job in an endless cycle of depression. In my case, I seem to allow myself to be hurt by over and over again by vending machine products.

I had thought that I had changed. I had moved on from the Welch’s orange juice and its refusal to offer as much of itself as I deserved. It was hard, but I moved on. And in some sense I think I grew.

After taking some time off from the vending machine scene, I finally decided it was time to reenter it. But still wary, I stayed away from the drink machine and went to the snack one instead. I had never had more than an on-again-off-again relationship with any of the snack products. They were never reliable enough. The selection always changes from week to week. Whenever one product, say M&Ms, is depleted it is replaced with something different, such as Reese’s Pieces. There’s no stability there. No prospect for a long term snacking relationship. But I figured that after the Welch’s thing that all I really wanted was a fling. And besides, I was thrilled to see that for the first time in months Skittles, one of my favorite candies, was a selection.

It was good at first, but then I slowly realized that something was wrong. All was not as it appeared to be. Take a look at this picture.

This Skittles package had inside it a limited edition flavor, “strawberry ice cream.” Now I ask you, where in the fruit rainbow does ice cream fit? Really. These are supposed to be fruit flavored candies, not fruit-flavored-dairy-product flavored candies. The Skittles flavors are carefully balanced to blend well together. Each Skittle has its own unique flavor, but when a handful is eaten together they blend to form a savory candy fruit cup. This ice cream debacle is a parasite on the blended fruit flavor. The cream just doesn’t mix. It stands out. It is an anathema.

Some may not think that this is such a big deal. Just pick them out if you don’t like them. Eat them separately, or not at all. Well guess what, there are only a finite number of Skittles in each bag. There are five flavors, so if one assumes an equal distribution then each individual flavor represents 20% of the total candy volume. According to the packaging the entire bag is 61.5g, so we are looking at 12.3g of wasted candy. Percentage wise, this is even a worse atrocity than the Welch’s.

You know what makes this even worse? The more perceptive of you may have even caught on from my previous paragraph. All of my math was based on a five flavor Skittle regime. “But wait a minute, there are normally five flavors and you said there was a new one. Shouldn’t you have then divided by 6 instead of five?” One would hope, but sadly no. Behold:

They didn’t just add the gay ass ice cream flavor, they replaced the normal Strawberry one! WTF?!?!? The red Skittles were arguably the finest of all Skittles. And they’re gone. So you see, I can’t just pick out the parasites and suffer a merely reduced volume. I am still deprived of all the highest quality Skittles.

I just don’t get this one. At least with Welch’s I could understand their motives. They were greedy money-grubbing bastards. But why the Skittles? They did not save any money by doing this. They still had to produce the same number, just of a spectacularly craptastic flavor instead of the normal good one. There was no tangible benefit to them for doing this. There is nothing but the sadistic pleasure in reveling in their customers’ misery.

Just when my faith in vending machines was finally healing.

I sing of curling, and the man...

...who, forced by fate, and the haughty hatred of losing, left the curling ice victorious. Today was a monumental day. In eight years, when I am standing on that podium at the 2014 Winter Games in (location to be determined by the IOC in 426 days) and listening to the national anthem with a single tear glistening on my cheek, I will think back on this day where I first savored victory and be amazed that there was ever a time in which I wasn’t on a Wheaties box. Today, for the first time in the course of all human events, I was on a victories curling team.

It appeared that the fates would be with us from the very beginning when we won the initial coin toss and claimed the hammer for the first end. But this day was to be one for the history books, and it would be very much less epic if we just came out and decimated the other team from the beginning. So much like the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS, we came out of the gates sucking so hard that it looked like all hope was lost. Despite our having the hammer (last rock thrown) in the first end, the other team scored a point. Less than ideal. Since we didn’t score we retained the hammer, but then neither team scored in the second end. The suspense was rising. Hammer in hand for the next end, tragedy struck. Somehow we managed to let the other team score 3 points. We were now down by 4. It was time to get serious.

The next end we fought back hard knowing that if we were to have any chance of winning we could not fall farther back in the hole. But alas, when the last stone came to rest on the ice, we found that they had us edged out by maybe a ¼ of an inch. To come so close to turning things around, within millimeters, only to fall short. Truly decimating.

Lesser men probably would have given up, and no one would have blamed them. The outlook was grim. After 4 ends, in all of which we had the advantage of the hammer, we were down by 5. But then again, we were not lesser men. And we had a cause for which we were struggling. You see, after last weeks loss our famous talk show host skip promised us free t-shirts from his station for our first victory. The t-shirts seemed beyond reach though, but we refused to despair. We would not go gentle into that good night. We raged, raged to get our free t-shirts.

With only 3 ends left, we wished we weren’t in this situation. But then we realized, so do all who curl to see such matches, but it is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the ends that are given to us. And so we surged. I, throwing in the third position for my team, cleared the house of the opponents’ rocks while leaving both of mine. My skip also left both of his for a 4 point end. We were back.

Now down only by one with 2 ends to go, we had new life. But we no longer had the hammer. While we were back in the game, we would still need flawless curling to prevail. Everyone on my team started making great shots, leaving two in the scoring area for the opposing team’s skip to deal with for her last stone. She had been flawless all day, and it was with great apprehension that we watched her stone coming down the ice. She knocked one, trying to leave her own closer to the center that our other one. But it rolled too far. We scored the point.

The score is now tied going into the final and deciding end. The advantage was still on the side of the other team for having the all important hammer. But we had the momentum. We got some rocks in the house early and went about putting some guards up. When it came down to the final rocks, we had one rock near the center, and one lying on the very edge. We had the center one well guarded until the other teams skip took out the guard with her first stone. We tried to put it back with our final stone, but it curled a little out of the way. Our center rock was vulnerable.

Again, our hearts were in our throats when the other team’s skip was lining up for her final shot. If she hit our exposed rock it was over. Our other rock was on the very fringe and she would have no trouble leaving her own rock inside of it after taking out the center one. Her rock away, I felt a sense of dread wash over me as it appeared to be on course. But shoving me fear aside, I readied myself to leap to action to sweep if it came to it (Being the third, I am the acting skip when the actual skips are throwing their rocks and can sweep away an opponent’s stone after it crosses halfway through the house). The rock continued on its collision course and our doom seemed inevitable. Until the rock started to curl.

The sweepers were sweeping madly trying to keep the rocks course straight. It passed by our poorly placed guard without a problem, and the world held its breath as it approached the all important center rock (if you found yourself unable to breath for a few seconds this evening that’s why). But the stone kept curling and passed within a hair’s width of the stone. You could not fit a sheet of paper between the two stones. But her rock passed by, leaving ours untouched. We had won.

In such moments of triumph, there is a second in which you feel a sense of detachment, like you are merely an observer looking in from the outside. Time stands still. But then the moment comes crashing down on you and you are hit with the full magnitude of your victory. We had earned our t-shirts.

It is unfortunate that I will be unable to reap my reward until two weeks time when we get to curl again. Apparently some people felt that their mothers were somehow more important that their curling. But if we must endure a lull in curling, it is so much better to be facing it with the taste of victory fresh on our pallets.

Feliz Cinco De Mayo

While there are many cultures in which I have no affiliation, I will gladly embrace their heritage on any holiday that is an excuse to drink. So much like my affinity for the Irish on St. Patty's Day, it is with a warm heart (and a slightly dulled mind) that I shout "Viva Mexico!" on this 5th of May, the 144th anniversary of the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. And while it may seem odd that anyone could be so proud of defeating the French in a military conflict (see this), such doubts are quickly swept aside after a few Coronas, Dos Equis, Margaritas, Tequila shots, or whatever your favorite means of inebriation south of the border happens to be (I do have to apologize for the "Light" part of my Corona. Who would have thought that the grocery store would run out of Corona Extra this time of year?).

And if kicking some French ass isn't enough for you, well there happens to be another reason to celebrate this year. A big announcement was made yesterday by the man who brought you Howard the Duck. The original Star Wars movies will be released on DVD (see this article) . Yes, I mean the original original Star Wars movies, sans all the gay special addition crap. You will be able to purchase them starting in September, but in an attempt to retain at least some of his gayness Lucas will pull them after only 3 months. But all those loyal fans who had the original trilogy on VHS, purchased the special addition when they came out, and upgraded technologies to the DVD version of the special addition, will now have the opportunity to buy the same movies a 4th time. Maybe even a fifth if you were really hardcore and had them on LaserDisc.

Many Great Eggs

Seeing as how the White House Correspondents' Dinner was televised on C-SPAN, it is very likely that many of you did not know that it took place this past weekend. Those who did know may have also known that Stephen Colbert, former Daily Show correspondent and host of the hit Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, was the entertainer at the event. On Colbert's show, he occasionally gives out the Big Brass Balls award to those members of society who have "muchos huevos grandes." Well Mr. Colbert demonstrated that he is entitled to decide who is worthy of such an honor because he clearly has the grande-ist huevos of them all.

If you did not see his performance, go see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcIRXur61II. He is as funny as ever, but the overriding emotion you feel while watching is "Good lord! Does he know that the president is sitting right over there?" Colbert utterly lambasts not only the president, but many others in attendance and the media itself. It takes huevos of steel, let alone brass, to say some of the stuff he did right to their face. Satire is often used deftly like a paring knife, but Mr. Colbert chose to wield it more like a disembowling lance. You could really feel for the correspondents figiting in their seats who were obviously keenly aware of the President's close proximity. But Stephen just kept unloading: "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

But putting such hostile situations aside, let us turn to more relaxing things. Like baseball. Today the Red Sox return from an unsuccessful road trip to the soothing confines of Fenway Park. And what better way to relieve some tension than to reunite with an old friend, namely former centerfielder Johnny Damon as he comes to Boston for the first time as a member of the New York Yankees? It was rather strange though, since all the fans started vehemently yelling something with a long "ooooooooo" sound. Apparently they were confusing poor Johnny with Kevin Youkilis who often gets cheers of "Youuuuuuks." It's strange that they would be so confused though since they now wear different uniforms. But they eventually figured out which one was Johnny when he took his spot in center field. The fans, clearly empathizing with Johnny's pain for being disrespected by the Red Sox organizaiton when they only offered $40 million instead of the Yankee's $52 million, tried to make ammends with him by throwing some cash out of their very own pockets down to him. The Red Sox bullpen told one of the ESPN reporters that they made $10 by the 4th inning from all the change that didnt quite make it onto the field.

The better homecoming was that of Doug Mirabelli, who was just reacquired from the Padres. All I can say is THANK YOU. Trading him was the worst idea ever. I said so at the time, and Josh Bard's MLB leading 10 passed balls only served to prove me right (pretty impressive to lead the majors as a backup catcher). But Doug's back now. They acquired him this afternoon, flew him in a private jet to Boston, drove him with a police escort to the park in 12 minutes (putting on the uniform along the way), and he went out to start today's game. What a trooper.