Sunday, January 29

My 86 year old Italian mother and I watched the Andrea Bocelli concert on PBS, Live from Central Park.  He ran through the classic Italian musical catalogue from opera to movie soundtracks to pop standards including:

Puccini’s, La Donna e Mobile;

Puccini’s, Neccun Dorma;

Verdi’s, La Forza Del Destino;

O Sole Mio;

Volare; and

Quando, Quando, Quando.

Mom shared where she was and when she first remembered hearing some of the songs and the circumstances she found herself in at those times.  I found it especially poignant as she lay in her rehabilitation center bed as we watched on her room T.V. together.  Songs have a wonderful way of transporting you back to your youth and for three hours I watched the years roll back for Mom.

Monday, January 30

Some fun things going on in the month of January include the Sundance Film Festival; Fort Worth Stock Show and Australian Tennis Open.

Tuesday, January 31

If one has never listened to PBS radio’s:

A Way With Words;

Studio 360; and

Radio Lab;

treat yourself to some of the most witty and erudite discourse occurring in the media today.

Saturday, January 28

I watched Moneyball last night on Demand.  It was beautifully photographed and sharply written with just a couple plot points that were not very clear.  The screen writer, Adam Sorkin, won last year’s adapted screenplay Oscar for The Social Network, and is nominated again this year.  He was also the writer/creator of the television series West Wing.  

As a baseball fan, it was fun to be reminded about how unlikely the 2003 Oakland A’s were to break the major league record for consecutive wins with 20.  They were a team made up of few star players, but selected using sabermetrics (baseball statistical analysis using mathematical logarithms to predict on-base success of any given player), as invented by Bill James.  

The movie was really about patterns versus randomness and understanding what you are seeing.  In other words, an athlete may look physically very gifted but may not actually accomplish much towards his team’s success.  You can apply this in many life situations involving teamwork.

Friday, January 27

I was going through my Bible and removing some past service bulletins as they were making it very thick.  I ran across several from Dr. Gerald Turner’s sermons in late August when he annually took the pulpit to mark the return of students to SMU and the beginning of another school year.  He has done this the past 16 years and I do not think I have missed one.  He knows the Bible and came to SMU from Duke, another Methodist school.  SMU is celebrating its centennial.

I noticed the hymn sung after his sermon was, I Stand Amazed in His Presence, a favorite of mine.

Thursday, January 26

The Distinguished Alumni awards at the SMU School of Law this year includes, the Honorable H. Harjono, class of ’81 and Founding Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia.

Wednesday, January 25

The Academy Award nominations were announced yesterday morning.  The films I will see in my ballot selection preparation for submission to my Oscar watching friends are all based on books I have read or would like to read:

Moneyball;

The Descendants; and

The Ides of March.

Tuesday, January 24

This blurb from the Oxford Union (Oxford University) advertising their social tomorrow in honor of Irish poet Robert Burns:

“A celebration of Robert Burns on Burns Night itself! Includes Ceilidh dancing, whisky, haggis, Scottish people...

Tickets: £10 Members/ £15 Guests, available now from the General Office - hurry to get yours before we sell out!”

Sunday, January 22

Today’s sermon at church started with video of Kevin Costner in a 25 year old Apple commercial.  Then the minister showed us her old iPods and how they have evolved.  The message was that we more easily let go of old technology for the new, than we do of old, outdated emotions that may still be controlling our future.

Monday, January 23

I was at the Department of Nuclear Medicine and learned about their work in biological luminescence, whereby studying the way fireflies light up can help create better dyes that when injected stain tumors for radiation images.