Friday, September 30

          My daughter tried out and made the 7^th grade volleyball team.  She worked her way up to a starting spot on the B-squad.  We enjoyed last night’s game and are pulling for their first win.  It was nice seeing the A-squad in the bleachers cheering them on while doing their homework, true student-athletes.

Thursday, September 29

Last night is being described by long time baseball commentators as the greatest end of the regular baseball season in history.  Two playoff spots were decided in three extra inning games.  The Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves each lost their extra inning games and did not make the playoffs and are being described as two of the greatest September collapses in history.  Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays came back from being down 7-0 to the New York Yankees to win in extra innings on a walk-off home run to take the Red Sox playoff spot having been down nine games just a few weeks ago.  Then, the Texas Rangers beat the Anaheim Angles  to secure home field and win the most games in a season in franchise history, 96.  On VHI, they were doing 24 hours of RUSH.  What an evening!

Tuesday, September 27

Nice autumn sunrise again.

Wednesday, September 28

Last games of the baseball season today.  Texas Rangers tie club record for wins at home.  If they win tonight in Anaheim or a Detroit Tigers loss, they will have home field for the American League championship game.

Monday, September 26

Hey, it’s my birthday.  I am 52.  I took a pre-dawn jog under the stars then watched the sun come up with our Beagle, Hallie - after family prayers and taking my daughter to school.  Breakfast included figs from last night’s birthday dinner at Mom’s and the traditional Italian birthday cream cake she and my sister made.  Mom added the sprinkles despite her eye sight, she explained each sprinkle clump represented a different place I had lived or gone to school or worked.

Sunday, September 25

Was treated yesterday to a full dinner made by my daughter as a birthday gift.  It included: appetizers of chicken quesadillas; a main course of Italian sausage and peppers; and a birthday cake she baked for dessert.  Plus, non-alcoholic Pina Coladas.

Saturday, September 24

Watched the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners last night, to win their 91^st game, then stayed up to wait on the Los Angeles Angels score from out West.  The Oakland A’s beat the Angels and so the Rangers magic number went from two when the evening began to clinching their division and qualifying for the playoffs.  The local station that covers the Rangers captured the guys going back on the field to celebrate with the fans who stayed after the game waiting then followed the players back into their locker room for the traditional spraying of each other with in this case ginger ale rather than Champaign due to their star player’s acknowledgement of alcohol addiction.  I had a Molson.

Friday, September 23

First day of autumn arrives with a morning temperature of 59 degrees.  A very refreshing walk with Hallie our Beagle under the early morning stars and quarter moon that was turned up in a smile.

Thursday, September 22

            A nice birthday lunch yesterday with my big Sis, including guava juice sparkling water mixed at our table.  Our waiter was a former student of my sister’s.  He remembered her from when he was in fifth grade saying, “you look familiar,” as soon as we sat down at our table.

Wednesday, September 21

            As we get close to the summer handing off to autumn on Friday, it was a glowing orange sunrise this morning at 7:22 central time after a clear half moon starry night.

Tuesday, September 20

            The Math of Baseball – The Texas Rangers’ magic number with only nine games left to play is five, that is any combination of five Rangers’ wins or Los Angeles Angels’ losses and the Rangers win their division over their nearest rival.  Two more wins and the Rangers win 90 games or more in two consecutive seasons for the first time.  Eight more wins and they surpass their most wins in a season.

Monday, September 19

               Infinity is about limitless space and size.  It is more of a mathematical term.  Eternity is about limitless time.  It is more of a theological term.

            It makes me ponder, how much do we know and how much will we learn?

           

Sunday, September 18

            A nice time last night with my friend who invited me to join him at the SMU football game and pre-game tailgates.  The campus was alive with students and alumni on a mild evening, red and blue everywhere.  I saw two older alums sporting khakis with red ponies on them in honor of the SMU Mustang.  Dresses with boots was the game night fashion for coeds.  Including one who had her toy Chihuahua in a dress matching her own, ala Paris Hilton.  Cheryl Tiegs, an SMU alumnus would have been proud or maybe more aghast.

Saturday, September 17

            According to Oxford physics professor David Deutsch’s new book, The Beginning of Infinity, Explanations hat Transform the World, there are four deep strands of existing knowledge: the theories of evolution; quantum physics; information; and computation, and that these help lead to his own theory that progress will be inevitable and sustainable.  His view is optimistic, that is, that we will always be able to eventually solve our challenges becuase of the very nature of how we solve problems which is to discard wrong solutions and to try new ones.

Friday, September 16

            I think people should react to me based on how I feel and therefore what I project at them.  However, I am assuming that they feel a certain way based on what I perceive they are projecting which could be a wrong interpretation on my part.  What if someday a “sync up” could be developed that lets us better understand each other much like computers have to get on the same page before they can operate together.

Thursday, September 15

            Interesting article on the restaurant El Bulli, thought by many to have been the greatest restaurant in the world until its closing this past July upon the retirement of its creator/chef Ferran Adria.  It became renowned despite or maybe because of being in a remote part of Spain’s Catalan coast.  One must drive up a hill on narrow roads without guard rails to the restaurant that sits on the top.  It is two hours and twenty minutes from Barcelona.  Many now have appointed Noma’s of Copenhagen to the newly vacated top spot of restaurants.

Wednesday, September 14

            It hit 107 degrees yesterday, a record for September 13 and a record for most days of 100 degrees, 70 days total for this year.  It broke the 1980 record of 69 days.

Tuesday, September 13

            The fifth of the five gifts I ordered from Amazon as part of Mom’s birthday present for me arrived, Basie at Birdland, recorded live in 1961 at the New York jazz club made famous and founded by saxophonist Charlie Parker.  The Count Basie band had 16 players including the Count on piano.  I was fortunate enough to see and hear them twice in Detroit as a youth.  Once at the top of the Pontchartrain Hotel’s outdoor rooftop lounge and once at the Fox Theatre with vocalist Joe Williams.

Saturday, September 10

            Today is the Michigan versus Notre Dame game played at night for the first night football game ever played at Michigan.  114,000 fans are expected.  I always think of my friend from work Chris who passed of pancreatic cancer a few years ago.  He called me from the game one year excited that he was going to see it at “the Big House” and was walking right towards it about to go inside and find his seat.  He was a big Notre Dame fan and had always watched the game in South Bend.  He brought me back a program and Michigan key chain from the game.

Sunday, September 11

            The 10^th anniversary.  We attend church service and put out our flags.  I buy popcorn from a Boy Scout who came to the door right after I finished watching coverage of the opening of the memorial at ground zero to the surviving family and friends.  Our minister spoke of Matthew 5:44, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  And Matthew 5:48, be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect.

Monday, September 12

            Our Italian dinner with our neighbors this weekend at a favorite neighborhood restaurant included a discussion that they still own their vinyl records and a turntable.  They said they recently ordered a new needle for it and would have us over to listen to some music “old school style” once it arrived.

Friday, September 9

               Scientists at the I.B.M Thomas J. Watson Research Center took particles of light, destroyed them and then restructured them over a mile away.  Researchers are still at work in trying to do the same with an entire atom.  

This quantum teleportation reminds one of “Star Trek’s” transporter that beamed people from the starship to planets, etc.  

Humans having trillions and trillions of atoms, it is very unlikely we will ever be able to teleport.  But maybe not impossible since it had previously been thought that one could not precisely measure the location and velocity of a particle at the same time (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle), which is what the scientists at I.B.M. did accomplish.

Thursday, September 8

            Fourth of five birthday gifts from Mom arrives from Amazon today, it’s Village Vanguard, Live Sessions featuring Dizzy Gillespie and Chick Corea recorded at the famous New York jazz club in September/October 1967.

Wednesday, September 7 – six month mark of Alternative Journal

            We slept with the window open last night since we have had a break from the intense heat and awoke to the smell of the wild fires in central Texas being blown across.  The record dryness and intense winds over the weekend led to numerous fires.  Texas is hoping for the torrential rains that two hurricanes have brought the east coast recently.

Tuesday, September 6

            It’s fun dropping my daughter off for volleyball practice before school and seeing the 8^th grade football team already out on the field for their own practice and the marching band at the high school next door similarly already at work, tubas glistening in the sunrise.

Monday, September 5

               Labor Day…the unofficial end of summer…in Michigan we used to start back to school tomorrow…here in Texas my daughter has been back for two weeks already.  

I watch the U.S. Tennis Open from Flushing Meadows and recall twenty years ago Jimmy Connors electrifying the crowds with his march to the finals as a relatively old man then by tennis standards.  He was the best at the “fist pump.”

Sunday, September 4

            Cooler temperatures have arrived as we interrupt the 100 degree cycle.  It was almost cold at 68 degrees walking Hallie this morning with my wearing just shorts and a t-shirt.

Saturday, September 3

            I was excited to find a recipe for Watergate salad, being a political junkie, especially Nixon era, plus loving JELL-O.  The recipe calls for 1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple in juice; 1 pkg. (3.4 oz) JELL-O pistachio flavor instant pudding; 1 1/2 cups COOL WHIP; 1 cup JET-PUFFED miniature marshmallows; and ½ cup chopped pecans.  Combine and refrigerate one hour.

Friday, September 2

            The third of Mom’s birthday gifts from Amazon arrived, Benoit Mandelbrot’s book, The Fractal Geometry of Nature.  Awesome.  This 1977 classic helped show how mathematics could also help explain how to understand nature, such as coast lines and mountains, and not just help build a bridge or skyscraper.  His formula’s, derived while working at IBM’s research and development department, when graphed, create beautiful images that repeat infinitely.

Thursday, September 1

            The second of the gifts I selected with my birthday shopping spree from Mom on Amazon arrived yesterday, from Arthouse Films, Visual Acoustics, The Modernism of Julius Shulman.  Julius Shulman was thought by many, including me, to be the world’s best architectural photographer.  He especially captured the work of one of my favorite architects working in Southern California, Richard Neutra.   Case Study House #22 was his most famous, iconic and recognizable photograph.  We now take for granted the style and beauty of pictures of homes in Architectural Digest magazine and the like.