Jul 27 2008

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 12:36 pm

Moneyball is a book that Lance has been recommending to me for years.  I’m not quite sure what made me pick it up last week, but i did.  And was immediately drawn in.

Moneyball is two stories.  One is of a high school baseball player named Billy Beane, upon whom high expectations are heaped.  The other is of the Oakland A’s, which is very poor as baseball teams go.  Eventually they converge when Billy Beane is hired as the A’s General Manager.  He proceeds to change the way people think about baseball.

Baseball is an extremely quantifiable game.  And even today, traditional baseball people refuse to acknowledge that you can objectively evaluate players.  Is there a human, unpredictable element?  Of course.   But by and large, players have patterns and are predictable.

Billy Beane takes one of the smallest budgets in baseball and manages to win more games than teams with budgets several times larger.  We readers are guided through the process, and it really is fascinating.

 

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Jul 27 2008

iLove

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 11:51 am

I have a a new toy – an iPod Shuffle.  And i love it! 

Last year when training for the half-marathon, i had very use of my old iPod before it died.  I enjoyed running with my own thoughts, but after just one run with the Shuffle, it’s much much better.  Music to keep you distracted is awesome.  Plus with the Shuffle, you never know what song is coming next.  It’s like a radio station that only plays your favorite songs.

I’ve done a couple of runs in the last week and i’m happy to say that the problems with my foot, while not entirely gone, are much diminished.  I’m hopeful that if i don’t push it too hard i can start running again for the series of races that happen this fall.

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Jul 27 2008

Love Forever, God

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 11:04 am

I received a birthday card from my grandmother. Inside the card was a letter. It was a piece of stationary with small writing on both sides – fairly lengthy. Here is the final paragraph.

I pray, before your next birthday – before your next breath – you will turn from your self-willed life to surrender to the Power of the Holy Spirit and run to Him. God will run to you, with arms wide open & say ‘Go, prepare a party, let’s all celebrate. My daughter who was dead is now alive. She once was lost & now she’s found, & I have received her back home safe & sound. She’s forever my child!

Love, Forever,
God

Several things disturb me about this letter.

1) Notice, the letter was signed as from GOD. Grandma had a postscript that said God used her hands and pen to write this letter. Isn’t this a little presumptuous? What is to stop anyone from writing whatever they want and saying “God wrote that.” Oh wait, people do it all the time and that’s a large reason why there is war in the world, because of people’s conflicting ideas about god.

2) In the paragraph above, it implies god thinks i am dead if i do not do what she suggests. For some reason that bothers me. Like, she thinks i am not a real person.

3) At one point in the letter she reminds me that when i was a child i believed in jesus. She (or i guess, god) implied i betrayed my child self by no longer believing. Children believe what they are told by the people that they trust. Of course i believed then.

I’m not sure how, or if, to respond. Part of me really wants to open a dialog about this, but the other part of me knows it’s not possible to have a real conversation. How can we? What i want is to be loved and respected by my family for who i am. What they want is for me to be something i’m not.

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Jul 25 2008

My Kid Could Paint That

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 10:22 am

This film is the story of Marla, a 4-year old who was rose to fame in the art world for her abstract art. The paintings are discovered by a new gallery-owner, and he showcases Marla’s work. Her paintings start selling for thousands of dollars.

Marla seems like a normal child; her mother insists that’s exactly what she is. 60 Minutes agreed when they did their piece on her. But if Marla is just like any other child, then it calls into question what abstract art really is. Is something that is created by a child, who may or may not be talented, that doesn’t have cohesive thought behind it, worth that much money?

The 60 Minutes segment also drew another conclusion – that Marla’s paintings could not possibly be just hers. It implied that her father was directing her, and might even be putting finishing touches on her paintings. There were several attempts to prove them wrong – to show Marla’s efforts on video. But none of them were particularly convincing.

The film maker was very frank that every documentary is going to have some amount of the bias of the film maker. He did not believe that Marla was the sole creator of all the paintings, and his bias showed. However, for all his bias, he did leave it fairly open to interpretation. For me, though, that the conclusions he led us to make are pretty clear. His portrayal of the family was that a) mom truly believed in both the creativity and the normalcy of her child, b) dad was not genuine, c) mom & dad worked opposite shifts. To me, it looked like dad probably did help Marla when mom wasn’t around. But, i don’t think anyone on the outside will ever know for sure.

Most of Marla’s collectors have been satisfied, however, and her paintings continue to sell well.

An interesting story. Definitely recommended.

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Jul 25 2008

Happy Birthday To Me!

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 10:22 am

Yesterday I turned 30 years old.  My twenties are over, and a new decade begins.

Every birthday, i receive a call from my dad, who always says “They sure do give out good babies in _____, Illinois!”  I love that.

I have been extremely fortunate in my life.  I am rich in friends and family.

I cannot ask for more.

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Jul 23 2008

Twenty-nine

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 9:01 am

The very first thing Lance said to me this morning, at about 6:30 am, right after the alarm went off, was “Today is the last day of you being in your 20s.”  And then he snickered.

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Jul 22 2008

Weeds

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 2:20 pm

My new favorite TV show is Showtime’s Weeds.  I stumbled upon it due to one of Netflix’s recommendations for me based on my other interests.  Boy, did they hit a nail on the head!  I love it!  Over the weekend we had both discs of Season 1, and watched all 10 episodes.  We were hooked!  I immediately added Season 2 to the top of the Netflix queue.

The story is centers around suburban mom who sells pot in order to stay afloat.  She is recently widowed with 2 sons (10 & 16).  The suburban community of Agrostic is full of lots of stereotypical suburban issues, such as affairs & PTA politics, but already in Season 1 they have also tackled eating disorders, race issues, how children react to a parent’s death, kids having sex, hearing-impaired students… Lots of good stuff here, all presented with at least a little bit of humor.  But it’s honest, and i like that.

At the start, the life of a drug-dealing mom seems pretty much the same as that of any other mom.  But as the show progresses, we start seeing more of the underside of the drug world, and it becomes apparent that Nancy may be in over her head.

I love all three of the main adult characters – Mary-Louise Parker, Elizabeth Perkins and Kevin Nealon.  The kids are doing a pretty good job, too.

I’m eagerly awaiting the next couple of DVDs in the mail, and i imagine most of this Saturday afternoon will be spent watching Season 2.  I highly recommend this to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

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Jul 15 2008

Website Launched

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 9:37 am

Welcome!

If you’re here, you probably saw the link on my Myspace blog. I probably won’t be using Myspace much anymore. I never use it much anyway – i only remember to check it whenever i have a blog i wanted to post.

Anyway, this site is much prettier, and will give me some more leeway to do other types of things besides the blog:

Recipes – My recipes section is mostly complete at this point. I took all the good recipes i have and put them out here. I believe i’ve tried all of these recipes, and all are good. I’ve always wanted an electronic location like this for my recipes. Now i can take a peek from work to see what ingredients i need to get from the store on the way home.

Bridge – This section is in development. There will be a section for bridge articles – they don’t belong in the normal blog. I will try to write more of these types of articles now i have a place to put them. I’ve always enjoyed reading bridge columns and bridge books. This will be my way to contribute in an amateur fashion. And who knows, maybe eventually i’ll make it into the Bridge Bulletin.

Photos – This section is also in development. It should be a smattering of select photos from various events. It will be the next section of the site that gets released, if i can ever find software that does what i want and integrates well with wordpress. Frankly i’m not having a lot of luck so far.

Who knows what else may eventually reside here? Right now I’m just having lots of fun learning about how to do all this stuff.

There have been a few posts in the past week that i didn’t put on Myspace. Check them out, and let me know what you think. :)

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Jul 11 2008

Big Check

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 10:11 pm

The day my family helped me move-in to the dorm my freshman year of college is memorable for many reasons. One of those reasons was the check i wrote that day. It was the biggest check i had ever written up to that point in my life. $1,500 (read: nearly all) of the money i had spent two years saving while working at McDonalds, written to my Dad, as a down payment on my education. It was supposed to insure that i would take school seriously. All i remember is that it seemed like a helluva lot of money.

I write big checks all the time these days on behalf of the Raleigh Bridge Club. I’m the treasurer, and every month i write a check bigger than that first memorable big check in order to pay the club’s rent. No big deal.

Earlier this week, lance & i had to write the biggest check i’ve yet written. And unfortunately not for the bridge club. The reason: replacing the entire heating and cooling system in our house. The previous system decided to retire after 30 years of good work. The good news is that the new system is better for the environment and should save a good deal on energy costs. The bad news, it will take about 8 years for the system to pay for itself. :)

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Jul 11 2008

P2P and Dexter, Season 2

Category: Uncategorized — podrey @ 10:06 pm

We loved season 1 of Dexter so much that we were dying to see Season 2. But, it wasn’t yet available on DVD.

So, i turned to a technology that i have long heard about, but never tried: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking. And it was pretty easy, once i found a client that automatically handled the port forwarding stuff for me.

P2P is just one in a long list of things that i’ve known the basics of for years, but never had to know details, because i had a husband who was extremely techy and always knew what the latest and greatest thing was. But, on my own, i’ve had to learn how to do it all myself: how to configure my router for my own wireless network, the details of video cards, apple software and upgrades, ipod library management, wiring stereo equipment, how to change air filters, GPS, creating my own website and adding wordpress and plugins and writing php code, web application servers, back-up servers… It’s all stuff i never had to know anything about. I never *wanted* to know anything about it either, which is why i’m proud of myself for eventually figuring it all out. I know there is a slew of new technological things to figure out now, but P2P was i believe the last one that i associate with “things my ex did for me”.

Season 2 of Dexter was very suspenseful. I don’t remember the first season being quite so nail-biting. This season, it always seemed that Dexter was about to get caught! It was excellent, and Michael C. Hall was awesome. The woman who plays his sister really gets on my nerves – i don’t think she’s a great actress. And the old guy that she fell for during the 2nd half of the season – his acting was even worse! But the rest of the show was definitely worth it.

I was surprised to see that there are plans for Season 3. Season 2 wrapped up rather nicely since they offed both the psycho girlfriend and the suspicious co-worker. It will be interesting to see what they have in store, and if they can really keep up the same intensity.

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