The Silence of the Cars

(Here's a recent conversation I had with Car2Go.)

Tech:  Car2Go services and support. How can I help you today?

Me:  Yeah, I'm in one of the new Car2Go cars. I checked it out but it won't start.

Tech:  So it won't turn on?

Me:  Well it turns on, but it won't turn over. It's one of the new electric ones and not the gas ones. Is there a button I have to push or something?

Tech: Oh! That's a really easy problem to solve. So can you put it in drive?

Wuzzat gizmo?

Me: Uh... sure.

Tech: Okay, now drive it.

Me:  ...But... the engine doesn't turn over when I turn the key...

Tech:  Actually just put your foot on the gas pedal.

Me: ... HOLY CRAP IT'S MOVING!

Tech: Yeah. We've been getting this a lot lately. The electric ones are silent so people don't know that they can just drive it once they turn it on.

Me:  Wow, the future is really something! Okay, I'm taking this stealth car to work. Thanks!

Tech: (Laughing) No problem. Have a nice day.

Baby School

Recently we attended our first baby class. I really wasn't sure what to expect. Some people told me we would be watching graphic videos of delivery including screaming and bodily fluids to desensitize us to the actual experience. Others said it would be a boring experience where they would talk about stuff you already knew; basic common sense baby facts.

It was actually more of a mixed bag and I found it to be a moderately useful experience. We all wrote down our due dates and names, introduced ourselves, and did all that uncomfortable "getting to know you" stuff. We were prompted to list out our fears about pregnancy and the instructor states that she will get to all of these over the next month. We were shown a graphic of a woman's body and how the baby crowds out organs and strains tendons.

The good news is I'm ahead of the curve as far as I can tell. Some of the eyebrow raising questions floated by the group were: "I've been told you shouldn't let babies sleep for more than two hours. Is this true?" and "Should I give my baby Flinstone's vitamins or do I wait a few months." Thankfully the group is pretty accepting and no one was made to feel uncomfortable.

Halfway through the class, though, I had an epiphany. You see, I was looking around the classroom, thinking about how odd it is that I'll be with these people for the next month and it occurred to me that THIS is the true lesson. That for the next two decades or so, we will be spending immense amounts of time with people we have nothing in common with other than having a child of similar ages.

Some of the cast includes: a hip music store owner, a rigid accountant, and a Fred Meyer manager. None of whom likely play D&D or soccer. And here we are. Cohorts. Sharing this experience based solely on the fact that we all apparently enjoy unprotected late winter sex.


Likely it won't be these people in particular that I'll be hanging around with for the next few decades, but the fact that the people I associate with is no longer under my control is really, really eye opening and if nothing else, I've internalized this fact. Touché prenatal class.  Touché

Hoping for the Future

Oh those Timbers. This has been a humbling year. I think a lot of us (maybe even Timbers management) thought that since the Timbers have the best supporters, there was no way they could be terrible. Maybe they wouldn't have a great season, but not terrible. Terrible is what happens to those teams in the non soccer fanatical areas of the country where they have trouble filling a stadium. Not Soccer City though!

And yet... here we are. Not as bad as Toronto, but we're fighting to not end up with the Wooden Spoon. Lets face it, there isn't any hope left for this year, and I would even go so far as to say that includes the Cascadia Cup. We could barely tie Seattle at home! Sure, I'll cheer on October 7th, but I'm going to be realistic about it.

As the days get darker here in the NW signifying the shift to dreary winter and the looming specter of seasonal affective disorder, I feel it's important to stay optimistic about next season. Thankfully, there ARE things to be optimistic about.

1) Creativity.  I think that one of the failings of John Spencer was that he didn't know what to do with creative players. James Marcelin, let go from the Timbers for "non soccer related reasons", is by no means Iniesta and definitely had a bone to pick with the Timbers front office, but a quote of his really stuck with me in the early part of the season. Marcelin stated after being picked up by Dallas "I can say this coach is more relaxed and lets you play your game. Spencer doesn't let you do that, he's just yelling all the time."

Watching some of those early games in the season, I saw a lot of players that were afraid to make mistakes. You can't take a player like Songo'o and expect him to play perfect defense. That's just not what he is out there to do. He is out there to be the creative engine, and that means trying ludicrous step-over moves that sometimes don't pan out. There were at least two games where Songo'o was the only creative sparkplug on the field, and yet Spencer subbed him because he wasn't adhering to his gameplan.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Songo'o and Nagbe have really blossomed since Spencer left. There's a lightness and a willingness to be daring on the field. Sure, we haven't put it all together tactically, but it's a sign that things are transitioning to something more open.

2) Developing a Style.  Kevin at Slide Rule Pass (an amazing Timbers blog!) summed it up best when he described the method the Timbers acquire players as "magpie like". We see a good player at a decent rate and we grab, with no thought to whether or not he fits into our style of play. It's part of the reason we ended up with this weird Scotch-Columbian mix of players. This may have been due to us either not having a style or due to a conflict between Spencer's vision and the vision of Paulson and Wilkinson. Either way, the roster looks the product of a confused soccer hoarder.

Currently it feels like the Timbers are trying to sort through and figure some of this out. We are feeling out a style, trying out players in it, seeing who fits and who is Kris Boyd (or something like that), and ultimately just setting the stage for having an actual plan for next year. Which brings us to...

3) Caleb Porter.  I was really excited when Porter was appointed the National U-23 coach. What better man to develop the national team youth than the man who routinely churns out stars from Akron! Unfortunately, that didn't pan out when the US failed to qualify for the Olympics and Porter got burned as the scapegoat; unfairly in my opinion. He didn't really have long to work with the team (he started in October 2011, had one training camp, and then off to the Olympic qualifiers in early 2012) and while the scorelines tell a sad story, we really only failed to qualify based on a fluke goal.  He was also able to get some truly inspired performances from the mercurial and inconsistent Freddy Adu.

Klinsman's loss is our gain though. We've already seen a shift from Spencer's rigid style to a more open style that I can't imagine Porter has not had input on. Additionally, I would think we may shift from buying MLS veterans like Kimura, Palmer, and Chabala as stop-gap measures to patch up a sinking ship to a focus on developing youth. This, however, means that we will likely struggle next season as we blood more of the young players (Trencito, Gleeson, Jean Baptiste, Richards, and whatever youth we snatch up in the offseason) and focus on building for the future rather than victories now.

My take: We're not going to transition overnight and realistically we will not be a title contender until 2014 at the earliest. That said, next year is going to be more fun and exciting! We will have an opportunity to watch our team develop and grow into something better, which really is the true fun of being a fan!

The (Over) Expectant Father

The actual book

So I'll start this out by saying "The Expectant Father" is an amazing book. I've gotten two copies, one from my mother-in-law and one from a good friend, but instead of getting rid of one copy, I keep one copy at work and one at home. That's how much I like this book. Great, down to earth information and each chapter starts off detailing what's going on with the mom's body, the mom's emotions, the baby's development, and likely the dad. It really is great.


That said, this thing is also completely terrifying for me right now. Not because of any content (well the section on Cesareans is pretty freaking terrifying, but anyone who's seen Prometheus knows that), but more so because of how few chapters are left. I crack open the book and read for a bit, but suddenly every sentence in the book changes into "You are not prepared for this!".

How this book feels right now

You see we're having the baby shower next week. We're both looking forward to it, but it also means that we currently have nothing babyish in the home. A friend of H who is also pregnant currently has a nursery with tons of stuff in it and apparently the dad painted a freaking anime cartoon mural on the wall. We have a bassinet in the corner filled with baby books. Not because we don't want stuff, but mostly that we just don't know what stuff to get yet. Currently our apartment looks suspiciously like the apartment of two people who are in denial of the fact they are having a kid.

Ewok Air Force:
Protecting the Gene Pool

What this really means, though, is that H and I are in a holding pattern. A gentle holding pattern akin to floating on the breeze with, say, a hang glider. Reading stuff about after the baby arrives takes me out of this nice little holding pattern and launches me into a goddamn WARZONE! Remember how the hang glider squadron's fared back in World War I? Of course you don't, because even the people back then recognized that they would get completely freaking SLAUGHTERED! The only Person stupid enough to think that hang glider combat is a good idea is George Lucas! I still don't understand why the Ewoks, a race of creatures that live in a freaking forest, would develop hang glider combat unless it was some sort of crazy Darwinian kind of logic where any Ewok who straps on a pair of wings and face plants into a redwood at about 100 feet in the air probably was no good for the species anyway.

I may never say this again, but I am really, really looking forward to the reassuring clutter of baby stuff. Freaking Ewoks.

Forgiveness (Part 1)

(I've been in a bit more of a somber mood, but since I do want to continue posting, I'll post what's on my mind lately even though it's not quite as entertaining as the usual stuff.)

The theme of forgiveness has come up a lot around me lately; even outside of work. Posts on Facebook, offhand comments from friends, and was rather prominent in the documentary I saw on Ricky Williams (Run Ricky Run). So I thought I would write about it.

I thought I'd start with the definition since I think It's a concept that I think has evolved.  Here is the current definition of "forgive" when you google it.

Stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

If we look at some of the past definitions, it is more about the act and less about the personal release.  For example, there is a site that has definitions of words from dictionaries in 1838 and 1913.

1. To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt; to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty. The original and proper phrase is to forgive the offense, to send it away, to reject it, that is, not to impute it, [put it to] the offender. But by an easy transition, we also use the phrase, to forgive the person offending.

There is no real mention of release of an emotion. This definition has more in common with the other interpretations of the word, the erasure of a debt.  

In 1913, we do start seeing shades of letting go, but not until we get to the later definition of "forgive".

1. To give wholly; to make over without reservation; to resign.
2. To give up resentment or claim to requital on account of (an offense or wrong); to remit the penalty of; to pardon;
3. To cease to feel resentment against, on account of wrong committed; to give up claim to requital from or retribution upon (an offender); to absolve; to pardon

So, why is this important? I think it means that we have, within our collective unconscious, two definitions of forgiveness. One is where we feel we are letting someone off the hook for a debt and the other is  more directed at the forgiver letting go of things. The act is the same, but the object of the action has shifted from the person being forgiven to the person who is doing the forgiving. I think this helps explain why we are a bit schizophrenic about the concept since we're often not sure which definition we're thinking about. I plan on talking about that conflict more in some following posts.

First Game Back

No matter how hard you work in the off-season, the first game back to outdoor soccer hurts. I'm not sure why GPSD has a 2-3 month hiatus from July until September for soccer seasons other than some sense of gleeful cruelty. It's just enough time to get completely out of game shape but not enough time to realize it.

Kind of what it looked like

I thought that I was doing relatively well this year. I was biking every day to work and back, was playing futsal once a week, and was making practice whenever my schedule allowed. Unfortunately, on my first juke of the season where I moved past a faked out defender, the momentary rush of accomplishment  was ground into the dirt when I saw that I had about 40 more yards left to run to get to the goal.


The next day was a world of pain. I wasn't just sore. I had also been kicked and hacked by rusty, sloppy defenders so my shins and ankles were scraped and cramped as well as the fact that my feet, not used to outdoor cleats for the last few months, developed blisters. There was a point the next day when I was creaking, groaning, and staggering out of bed that I thought to myself "Oh crap. I'm going to have a screaming infant here next season who will require me to creak, stagger and groan myself out of bed to tend to her!" I'm hoping she'll be able to understand the concept of "injury time" relatively soon since I may need a minute or two added on to get there!

The Wheel of Time stops turning

Recently I've been engaged in a Wheel of Time re-read group on reddit (here's a link) that will read all 13 of the WOT books over the next few months, culminating in finishing about the time that the final Wheel of Time book comes out. It's a pretty illuminating experience. I've had mixed feelings about the sprawling, unwieldy series for a long time and it's kind of nice to look at some of these works over 20 years later.

For those not in the know, Robert Jordan started this series in 1990. I was fourteen then, and this series really captured my young imagination. The wiki page says it was planned to be a six novel series, though I'm skeptical of this. It was put out during a time when trilogies were the standard and I suspect it might have been a two trilogy situation.

Anyhow, what matters is that somewhere along the line, Jordan got lost in his world. Six books turned into eight, then ten, then twelve. This would be forgivable, but then Jordan got caught up in the minutia. He would spend pages describing a scene, down to the clothing and styles and history of styles and how each character interpreted the styles and how their style of clothing was meant to disrespect this style and so on, and then each character would leave the scene immediately after he finished describing it.

Also, there were NO throw away characters. In the Knife of Dreams, the last Jordan book, there are 685 characters! Jordan is constantly making random characters integral to the plot so you have to remember them all. Here's a short list of  some of the characters with a name that begins with "E" that are mind numbingly similar that Jordan will simply throw out as if he expects you to know them like you had coffee the other day:

Edin, Eben, Edessina, Elfraim, Ehvin, Elayne, Eldrin, Eldrith, Elenna, Elaida, Elienda, Ella, Elvaine, Elza, Enaila, Ethin, Eyndel.

Honestly, I'm not even doing the meandering nature of it justice. Here's a link to the Amazon page of one of the books. Scroll down to the reviews and bask in the sarcastic brilliance.

For me, I think it was after reading book six or seven where after about 900 pages the main plot has not advanced AT ALL that I gave up. It was hard. It had been a part of my life for 12 years by that point but the series was a dysfunctional relationship; leading me on but always letting me down. I was convinced it would never end and in 2007 I believed I was proved right. Robert Jordan had died and, at the time, the hope of closure on this series died with him.

Note how there are absolutely no similarities
between Robert Jordan and George RR Martin.

Thankfully this series would get a second life. Brandon Sanderson, a new favorite author of mine (if you haven't read Mistborn, you need to!) was commissioned by the publisher and Robert Jordan's widow Harriet McDougal, who provided RJ's notes to Sanderson, to finish the series. In 2009 he started a finishing trilogy. He promptly spent the first part of his first book killing off minor characters and tying up loose ends of minor storylines. He then dragged the spotlight back to the five or six characters that really mattered and moved things forward. It became fun to read again! And yet... some of the plot lines remain murky to me because I skipped so many books.

So here I am, reading the books one by one as we move towards A Memory of Light. I plan on posting my impression of each book as I finish and move forward to the next!

Futsal

Recently I've switched from playing indoor soccer to futsal and I've got to say that after the Apocalypse, I think futsal will be one of the sports still around. Indoor soccer requires a rink with plexiglass and barriers all around the edges. The local Portalnd Futsal center is just a converted warehouse with chain link fences surrounding the fields and heavy metal blasting over the speakers. Throw in a few flaming sconces at the corners and maybe make spiked shoulder pads a requirement and you've got something out of Thunderdome.

Spin the wheel raggedy man!

The good: Accurate passing is really important.  I feel like this is really going to improve my passing game.

The bad:  You end up using the bottom of your foot a lot more for moves. In a place like Portland where half of your outdoor games are going to be in mud and rain, the bottom of your foot is the most unreliable place to anchor any juke from. 

It's taken me a bit to adjust to.  The pace is faster, positioning is different, there's an actual out of bounds, and they count fouls kind of like how they do in basketball, giving a pk for teams after the foul count goes over 5.  

In fact, I finally started to get the hang of futsal when I realized it is not really soccer. It's basketball you play with your feet.  Just watch the movement on the following video and it's easy to see.

Outdoor soccer starts this weekend and H and I are eager to see if playing futsal will help my skills this season!  I'll keep you posted!