Mr. Yoder’s Blog

Having heard great things about the traveling Star Wars in Concert, I was half hoping to go see it.  On the first leg of it’s North American tour, it came to Baltimore, Scranton and Philadelphia.  The timing of each was less than stellar, so I reluctantly let it pass.

Then came the second leg, and I desperately watched the schedule to see if it would swing by.  And swing by it did, right into the Giant Center.  Being that close, I had to go and my wife agreed, the boys had to go as well.

Traveling with the show are some archival costumes and props, arranged throughout the concourse at the Giant Center.  I had seen a similar display at the Franklin Institute a few years back, but this was some new gear, including a New Hope era Chewbacca.  Interesting bit of detail, the silver blocks on his bandoleer are just chunks of 2×4 spray painted silver.

The 501st and Rebel Legion were out in force.  Such great organizations, it’s a shame that Hershey did not know how to properly handle them.  Instead of asking the costumers to spread out throughout the concourse from the start, they were right at the entrance, creating a massive bottle neck.  A milliliter of common sense, or five seconds worth of research would have revealed the popularity these fans endure and a good way to handle their presence.  One way not to handle them:  let a crowd of kids accrue around Chewbacca, then ask him to move 50 yards down the concourse.  I know that’s not the way to handle them because that’s what Hershey security did, and it was a mess.  In the end, we got the picture.  Note:  kids tend to look at the character, not the camera.

After finding our family section seats, we had a short wait until show time.  The orchestra opened with the main theme.  There were no images from the movies, but lots of really cool live shots of the musicians.  After that piece, narrator Anthony Daniels was introduced.  He’s made his living as C-3PO and one of the most visible actors from the films, and who can blame him.  His schtick was good, with the obligatory threepio references, even dropping into the voice and mannerisms when quoting the droid.

Musically the show was great.  Particularly impressive was the meastro keeping the musicians on tempo to pre-arranged video.  He had some help in the form of small video screen with cues on it, but a great job, just the same.  The music selections were good.  I would have preferred to hear the cantina theme as a stand alone piece, not part of a medley, but that’s my only criticism (the old David Spade bit from Weekend Update about the good songs in buried in medleys comes to mind).  Mildly confusing were shots of Jabba’s palace during the cantina theme, but what was cool were the curtains of LED’s to either side of the screen showing musicians as they played.  The musicians with solos were highlighted throughout the performance.

The show concluded with a planned encore, the Imperial March for a second time, this time with video of the musicians.  Overall, a fantastic performance, heavy cream on the milk scale.

As the school year waned, I embarked on a reading challenge of epic proportions:  Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged.’  At 1168 pages it is probably the longest book I have ever read.  Having requested it at the library without actually seeing it, I was stunned by its size.  It was like ordering a large cheesesteak at Smith’s not realizing that it is 2 feet worth of sandwich.

So without further ado, this is my 1168 word review of ‘Atlas Shrugged.’  I read the book as part of my effort to read the supposedly great works of literature.  Usually I find these books to be unreadable wastes of wood pulp.  To my annoyed surprise, the book was not bad.  Set in a fictional version of our own world, it is the story of Dagny Taggart, Operating Vice President of the Taggart Transcontinental Rail Road, and her attempts to live as a capitalist when countries all across the world are becoming ‘Peoples States’ (communists).  It is part mystery, part science fiction, part action/adventure thriller, part romance and part philosophical treatise.  Since it is so long the different styles do not often interfere with each other.

The character of Dagny was the most believable.  Actually, she was the only one that seemed to have any legitimacy as she wavered between the two factions in the book; I will call them the egoists and the commies.  Egoist is a term coined by Rand, I believe.  In the context of this book, think of it as a capitalist in the extreme:  nothing is given, everything has a price (or a ‘value’) and any form of charity is a weakness.  The commies are just that:  communists.  They are also the rich and self-anointed cultural elite.  They are the enemy for the Soviet ex-pat Rand and throughout the course of the book they work to turn the United States into a communist country (by means of politics, not the stereotypical military takeover).

‘Atlas Shrugged’ is clearly a defense of the egoist philosophy, the reliance on self.  At first, I loved the way the egoists out-thought, out-talked, and humiliated the commies and their cultural elitism.  I enjoyed the mocking tone used to describe philosophers and others that spend their time in thought only with no action.  But over a thousand pages, it starts to wear thin.  In fact, Rand winds up doing her philosophy a disservice by not creating a commie character capable of trying to form a cogent argument against the egoists.  All of the commie characters are whining, sniveling, spineless globs of flesh that are easy to hate.  I guess for Rand’s purposes, the ease of hatred is a good thing; the reader clearly is not supposed to like them.

The egoists are just the opposite.  Where the commies are all emotion and feeling, the egoists show no emotion, especially when dealing with the commies.  They are cool, calm and collected all of the time.  Even in defense of their lifestyle, their rights, their money, they show no emotion.  Rand likes the word ‘flat’ in describing a tone of voice.  It seems a character says something ‘flatly’ at least every third page.  Again, it is to the detriment of Rand’s purpose.  An egoist that shows some passion and maybe gets angry with the commies is much more believable than the characters that the reader is presented with.  The egoists are without emotion even with each other.  You would think as they discuss their plans, as they try to recruit others to their cause that they would show some spark, but there is nothing.

And lest we forget, the physical descriptions of the two classes:  egoists are thin, athletic, tall and generally beautiful.  The commies are pallid, fat, and seemingly unhealthy.  As a movie, the discrepancy would be glaringly distracting.

Returning to the supposed heroine, Dagny Taggart is a very strong character, a very strong woman.  It is interesting, considering the age of the book, that no mention is made of the scarcity of women as industrialists, no mention is made of the fact that Dagny is a woman in a man’s world.  I think that is a testament to Rand’s vision; it is almost clairvoyant in her hope for equality.  If only Dagny were not dependent on men.

Huh?  Throughout the book, Dagny attaches herself to various men, three to be exact.  And it is not like she just finds a guy for a fling; the men she is with are rich and powerful egoists that are stronger than she.  It detracts from her ability and the strength of her female character to be alternately fawning over her railroad, her man, and her convictions.  Equally as frustrating is the interaction between the three men.  It appears they are not the type to kiss and tell because despite the fact that they are the best of friends, egoists all and business allies, they never learn of the others’ relationships with Dagny.

The last two or three hundred pages varied greatly in their quality.  Dagny seemed to find a level keel, making her more fun to read.  There was a great action/thriller component to these last pages including a great rescue scene.  Unfortunately, the end also wrapped up the story of Eddie Willers.  If ever there was a character in the book that I was ‘routing’ for it was Willers.  His ultimate end is insulting to what Rand was trying to accomplish.

The last two hundred pages contained exactly that:  what Rand was trying to accomplish.  After so many pages, there had to be a catch; it came in the form of an egoist monologue (although set up in fascinating fashion) that proceeded to run for sixty pages.  It brought the plot and all the development of nine hundred pages worth of story to a screeching halt.  At times it was redundant, at times it wandered back to the plot for a paragraph or two.  Throughout it all it was an incredibly transparent move on Rand’s part to espouse her ideas and philosophy.  The length and timing of the monologue ultimately defeated her purpose.

It is a shame; a lot of what Rand has to say makes sense, at least to me.  She desires smaller government.  She wants free markets to regulate themselves in the form of customers purchasing from reliable providers.  Consumers, working together as a group, should be able to protect themselves.  Written nearly half a century ago, the themes are almost psychic in their predictions of what is happening in the United States today.  I am certain Rand is rolling in her grave in response to government bailouts, nationalized healthcare and companies deemed ‘too big to fail.’

It certainly was an epic book, taking me well over a month to read.  I cannot agree with everything, but Rand makes some interesting suggestions, although there are probably more efficient ways to suggest them.  After all the effort, I am glad I read the book.  I give it a respectable two percent on the milk scale.

I feel like summer can officially start.  It certainly was late in coming, what with snow, and a late Labor Day pushing school well past the second week of June.  Then for teachers there’s the in-service, and then the summer school.

But finally the end arrived and I could focus on the tasks ahead in the role of Best Man in my brother’s wedding.

• We did some tailgating and a Phillies game for the bachelor party (his choice, not mine).
• We picked up the tuxes.  Lord knows what the various municipal authorities are thinking in northern Montgomery County, but the tux shop, which sits at the meeting of 3 major roads, was nearly inaccessible because 2 of the 3 were closed for construction.  I’m sure they don’t all need to be closed at the same time.  However, major detours were not the most inconvenient part of the tuxes, it was the group of people there before, during, and after we were there.  Make no mistake, it was the same group.  At first glance, the chauvinist would say their problem was bringing the bride.  However, the groom was worse!  He demanded to inspect each guy in their tux (compare that to my brother who wasn’t even there when I tried mine on).  There was one guy that was in the fitting room the entire 45 minutes I was there.  He tried on at least 3 different shirts, 2 jackets and 2 pairs of pants and still wasn’t convinced that they were right.  Personally, I’m not in to clothes.  I put on the tux, let the haberdasher make adjustments, trusted his judgment, and was gone.
• Then it was the rehearsal.  I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there myself, but the rehearsal was twice as long as the ceremony (which was a full Catholic mass).  Only part of the delay was my sister-in-law’s desire to practice precessing with the music (played wonderfully by my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and her husband on a pair of violins and a pair of cellos).  The bigger delay was the woman my dad called the major domo.  She would NOT stop talking about the most inane trivia.  Literally, the practice was so long, that most in the wedding party forgot the few things we were to remember.
• Fortunately, once it was go time, we didn’t look too bad, and it was probably a case of only those that were in the wedding knew the screw ups.  I didn’t lose the rings, the full Catholic mass was just under an hour, there was no insipid receiving line (woo hoo!!!!) and the photographer was the greatest photographer I have ever worked with.  No lie, family pictures took less than 10 minutes for both sides, and she pulled the trigger so fast she got good pictures of my kids; they didn’t have time to get antsy.
• Wedding party pictures were in a fancy garden.  Again, the photographer was terribly efficient.  My favorite part was the other wedding at the fancy garden.  Clearly a high class affair, we saw a car drive past with a bridesmaid riding shotgun and the driver not wearing a shirt.  It is unknown whether he had the T-shirt tux in the back seat.
• The reception had this awesome back room for the wedding party to use and stay out of the main hall.  The girls were incredibly patient at the guys crowded around a radio listening to USA-Ghana (sigh).  We hung out there for over an hour, and were incredibly relaxed and calm by the time we had to do introductions (major credit to groomsman Scott for being introduced as ‘Doctor’).
• Before I knew it, it was time for my most important job:  the toast.  With a nod to my friend the Laziest Gnome, here’s an approximate transcript of the toast:

Thanks to Steve for the honor of serving as best man, and to both of you for asking the boys to be ring bearers.  And for those playing along, the over-under on the number of cookies each of them eats is 20.
Thanks to Mom and Dad for the great rehearsal dinner.
Thanks to Fr. Brownholtz for a beautiful ceremony.
Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. L for the great party that is just getting started.

Now, I want to mark an occasion, they didn’t want to but Steve and Ange did.  Tomorrow is Mom and Dad’s 40th wedding anniversary, congratulations Mom and Dad.
I should also say Happy Anniversary to my wife on, coming up on Tuesday.
So that’s Steve and Ange on the 26th, Mom and Dad on the 27th, Theresa and I on the 29th:  Amy, June 28th 2014 is a Saturday.  Just sayin’

Ange and Steve:  You two are certainly very active, and research is starting to show that married couples that enjoy the same physical activity together are likely to stay together.  So, keep running together, although in marriage there is no race and no finish line.  However, with the way you guys run, that just means you’ll have to keep holding hands longer.  Keep marching together, although in marriage there’s no guy with a tape recorder walking around on the field trying to not to get run over by a bass drum.

And Steve you’d best get that Buccaneers itch out of your system now before you have kids.  I know it takes up a lot of time now, and I understand why Steve wanted to do it.  You may say it’s because you wanted to be able to better instruct kids how to drill.  But I think it was an old man seeking one last shot at glory before he settled down, taking that one last crack at a title, that trip to championships that eluded you with Glassmen.
Although wouldn’t it have just been easier to ask Ange what it was like to Bluecoats?

Ange, you are a wonderful addition to our family, we couldn’t be happier.  A girl after my own heart, although even I didn’t use a spreadsheet to generate the guest list.  That’s only because google docs didn’t exist 8 years ago.  You’re a great aunt, the boys are so excited about their Aunt Angie (ang ee).  And you’ll make a great Yoder. I’ve already seen you fall asleep after a big meal.  One thing you will have to learn, when you host a big family meal:  don’t forget the dressing.  It’s not hard to make, its just macaroni salad without the macaroni but don’t forget it.

Steve, I remember once asking about one of your school concerts early in your career.  Your comment was, ‘we started together and ended together.’  Marriage is a lot of the same.  Obviously this is the down beat.  You are starting together.  In between you’ll play different tempos, different time signatures, different keys to say nothing of different songs.  The key is to end correctly and hit the cut off at the same time.

So we raise our glasses:  to many productive miles, to always being in tune, to a fermata at the end that never gets cut off, to Ange and Steve.

• With the toast out of the way (incidentally, special thanks to Mr. Gumble for the help with the Glassmen/Blue Coats joke.  It killed, especially after I explained it later to the people that don’t know what DCI is), I was able to relax.  This was easily one of the best receptions I’ve been to, and not just because I was in the wedding.  The food was great, the DJ was competent and we were booted out at a respectable 9:30.  With the help of my wife, we got the excess 60+ pounds of groom’s cake on to my parent’s kitchen table, and I was asleep by 11.

I’ll give you one guess as to where we found the boys when they woke up.

This past Saturday was a fantastic day.  I bought some great compost, US tied England, and I made my first trip of the season to Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

First, the compost.  Maryland has this awesome leaf composting program and then they will sell you the results at $5 a bag.  On my way to Baltimore, I stopped and picked up a few bags.  Sunday I had the chance to spread some in the garden around my corn and peppers.  The corn was looking fine to begin with, the peppers looked to be having some bacterial spot issues because of all the rain.  However, I swear the peppers looked better after just a few hours with the compost on the ground.

Upon arriving in Baltimore, I made my way to Inner Harbor and the ESPN Zone.  I got there around 2, looking forward to the 2:30 start of the USA-England match.  I was on my feet for the entire match, but I never felt a thing.  The crowd there was awesome, high fives all around with complete strangers.  I hope the US side takes a great deal of confidence out of that match.  Tim Howard had a great game, despite the mauling he received from Heskey (should have been a straight red card for that).  Coming out with a draw was nice, although to see Altidore put that shot past Robert Green into the net, instead of off Green’s desperate hand and onto the post, would have been outstanding.  Green does deserve Man of the Match honors for bungling a simple ground ball that any Little League shortstop could have handled.

From ESPN Zone I headed west to Oriole Park for an evening game against the Mets.  Yes, my O’s are abysmal.  But when you are in the Picnic Perch, things feel better.  And it was nice to have a pretty full house, even if most of the orange was accompanied by the blue of the Mets.  The all you can eat tally:  6 dogs, 2 plates of nachos, 1 bag peanuts, 5 cups ice cream and 4 sodas.  It’s amazing how much a little variety pays off as I felt much better after that than after the 10 dog night at the Phillies game.

As for the game, another notch in the win column for an O’s opponent, although Matusz pitched another great game.  I’m getting a little fed up with Luke Scott, he spends more time playing half way and complaining to the umps than hustling.  That is not the Oriole Way.  To be fair, no one has played the Oriole Way for about 20 years now.

I’m going to blatantly steal Rick Reilly’s idea of ‘Too Short for a Column’ and combine a few thoughts.

• It goes without saying the Bud Selig is an idiot, and it also goes without saying that Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game.  Using his ‘In the Best Interests of the Game’ superpower, Bud should have declared it a perfect game.  However, it seems he can only ever use that when his decision clearly is NOT in the best interests of the game.  It reminds me of the old baseball story:  After a particularly bad call, a player turns to the ump and says ‘everyone in the stadium knows that was a bad call,’ and the ump says, ‘but mine is the only opinion that matters.’  I guess it is only Bud’s opinion that matters in this case.  For Mac users, the end is in sight, however.
• Last weekend my wife made a really cool birthday cake for my youngest son:
• I recently finished The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.  It took me forever both to read it and to start reading it.  I was a bit scared of a double digit series of 600+ page books that wasn’t done because the author died of cancer.  There’s a guy finishing it, which is good.  I’m looking forward to the second book after a break.
• Right after Eye of the World I read Outcast by Aaron Allston.  It is a book in the Fate of the Jedi series and felt so short in comparison, it was like I blinked and missed it.  It was a good book, didn’t require too much thought and only addressed a pair of plot lines.  I really enjoy the interaction between Luke and his son Ben.  I’m currently engaged in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, but I look forward to reading the next book in Fate of the Jedi, Allies, soon.  Maybe that way I can remember what happened in Outcast.

It was 30 years ago this week (May 21st to be exact) that The Empire Strikes Back was first released in theaters.  Truly, this is an occasion to celebrate.

I’m not going to name Empire as my favorite Star Wars movie.  I honestly have a hard time picking one.  I know some would say that if you can’t pick a favorite you don’t really know them, but I disagree.  Trying to differentiate pieces of the larger story is a disservice to that larger story.  That’s the moral high ground I will take.

Empire is a crucial piece to the Star Wars franchise beyond the role it plays as Act 2 of the Original Trilogy.  Its release and ultimately its success set the stage for sequels throughout the industry.  It firmly established that ANH was not a fluke and that the story and style had merit.  The character of Yoda was a revolutionary breakthrough not in his personality, but in his physical make up.  And to think that Frank Oz, the man with his hand in the puppet, was not even nominated for any awards is inexcusable.

Personally, Empire holds a special place for me.  Seeing Empire in the theater is one of my earliest memories.  In the style of wispy memories, I only remember fragments:  my Dad was home, so it must have been a weekend.  I had ham and cheese with mustard for lunch.  We went to see a matinee and got there late (Luke was escaping from the Wampa).  And that about covers it.  My mom says I spent most of the movie under my jacket, and Empire wasn’t my first introduction to Star Wars (that came on Christmas at my uncle’s house, watching on HBO with an uneaten twizzler dissolving in my hand).  However, nothing can take away Empire’s first memory status.

Without further ado, my top 10 Empire moments

10.  Han rescues Luke from the cold.  Gingerly using a lightsaber to cut open the tauntaun, Han declares, ‘And I thought they smelled bad on the outside.’

9.  Bounty hunters.  This was Empire’s cantina/Jabbas palace scene.  In a Battle Royal, I think Bossk comes out on top if he can convince the others to unite against Boba Fett and eliminate him first.

8.  Vader revealed as Luke’s father.  Easily the most misquoted movie line of all time.  Vader says, ‘No, I am your father.’  Not, ‘Luke, I am your father.’  Some would say this is low on the list; to that I say I grew up knowing that Vader was Luke’s dad; the shock value was minimal.

7.  Artoo fights Yoda for a flashlight.  I love that Artoo is somehow offended by Yoda’s behavior, and his solution is to defend the sanctity of the flashlight.  This kind of begs the question:  shouldn’t Artoo recognize Yoda, or at least have some idea as to who he is?

6.  Han stumbles across Lando’s name in the galactic phone book he has on the Falcon, prompting the line, ‘Lando’s not a system, he’s a man.’  That should read, ‘Lando’s not a system, he’s the man.’

5.  Vader vs. Luke I.  A great fight; I used to get so mad at Vader for what I thought was cheating, throwing stuff at Luke with the Force.  He redeems himself by offering Luke the role of assistant to the guy that overthrows the Emperor.

4.  Luke’s Jedi training.  The distant ancestor to the 80’s music montage, there were times in my life that I emulated this in my own exercise routines.  I have never successfully done a flip over a fallen log.  I have never successfully done a flip period, but it looks so cool going over an obstacle.

3.  Chewie puts Threepio back together backwards.  The nerve of Threepio here is appalling.  Blasted to pieces after wandering away from the group, he then berates Chewie after being reactivated because his head is on backwards.  Chewie, showing incredible patience, does not re-dismember the droid.

2.  Han frozen in carbonite.  A terrifying sequence, but it includes one of the smoothest lines ever.  After Leia declares her love for him, Han’s answer is, ‘I know.’

1.  Luke regains the whininess of ANH as Yoda explores the camp site declaring, ‘You’re making a mess.’  I use that line frequently, in an attempted imintation of Mark Hamill’s delivery.  It is funny for me, at least.

Happy 30th Empire, here’s to many more.

In what looks to be turning into a tradition, I piled into a large van with a number of my teaching colleagues Monday night to take in a Phillies game.  And an unhealthy amount of hot dogs.  What follows is a brief time line of the event.

2:50; school’s out, time to change for the game.  I’m not a Phillies guy, so I threw on a red shirt to try to fit in.  I topped that with an ancient Souderton High School long sleeve T, to show my solidarity with Jamie Moyer.  Topping it all off, my Orioles hat.  That probably canceled out the red shirt.

3:25; we’ve piled in to Dr. Leyh’s mini-van on our way to Brownstown to pick up the big van and meet with the group that lives in Lititz.  Dr. Leyh complained of being sore due to spreading stone throughout his driveway.  Seeing as he’s retired, I don’t think he has a right to complain about how he spends his day.  It’s his choice to spread stone.  If I were retired I would choose to not spread stone.

4:00; Mr. Virmani is at the wheel of the big van, and we’re off.  Conversation in the van was greatly varied, but we did manage to solve all of the school’s problems by the time we got on the Turnpike.  Good thing Mrs. Brumbaugh was along, so that a principal was there to hear our great ideas.  By the time we got off the Turnpike at Valley Forge, we had fixed PSERS, PDE and were most of the way through fixing education at the federal level.

5:17; Mr. Brogan decides to try to explain Lady Gaga to Dr. Leyh.  I’m not sure it worked.

5:01; trying to get off the Turnpike, Mr. Virmani manages to get in the one lane at the tollbooth that has that woman that didn’t have a ticket to get off.  We sat there for no less than 5 minutes as she argued with the toll collector.  We were probably 2 minutes from taking up a collection to help her pay the $21.90 that was her toll.  We later learned that she was ‘forced’ in to an EZPass lane when she got on the Turnpike.  ?!?!?!?  See, the key is, you got to be smarter than the tollbooth.

5:12;  a path diverged on the Interstate and we, we took the one more traveled by.  I almost feel bad for Mr. Virmani.  He was in a no win situation.  We had a choice of getting off the Schuylkill Expressway and going south on the Blue Route and coming at the stadium from the south, or staying on the Schuylkill.  As we shouted instructions ‘Left, right, down, up!’ he chose the Schuylkill.  With truly comedic timing, Mr. Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame) turned it into the Surekill Crawlway as we rounded a bend 20 seconds after Mr. Virmani committed and came to a complete stop.

6:12; we finally make it.  As soon as we were out of the van I threw in a handful of Ranch sunflower seeds.  Eat.  Spit.  Be happy.

6:23; I down my first 2 dogs.   In one of my best ideas to date, I brought a can of Easy Cheeze (not Cheese Whiz, that stuff comes in a jar, I’m talking the spray cheese product in the pressurized can).  I had cheese dogs all night.

6:25; Mr. Newman, on his rookie trip marvels over the chopped onion dispenser (a great device, turning the knob drops chopped onions along the length of the dog).  He was also heard to wonder if the dogs were made from grass-fed beef.

6:31; we wander the stadium in search of cheesesteaks.  I also ate 2 more dogs.  Personally I think it is sacrilege to not eat dogs on dollar dog night, so I did not eat a cheesesteak, but others did.

6:59; I get to the top of the steps en route to my seat in time for the National Anthem with 2 more dogs in my hand.  I should comment on our seats:  3 rows from the top on the third base line.  And on a rainy night-undercover.  Clutch performance on the part of Miss Wilburn finding those seats.

At this point the game starts, so my time line will now be based on innings.

Top 1; some guy from WOGL is throwing dogs into the stands.  I managed to get one.  More importantly, one of them went over some fencing around one of the support columns.  We could see it but not reach it.  That thing is likely going to be there until the stadium comes down.  Also, the Pirates led off with a homerun.

Bottom 3; big inning for the Phillies, scoring 5.  After the inning I ran down for 3 more dogs.  I kept going to the same cashier, she was very nice.  She always said ‘Have fun.’  And she also knew my system:  I walked around anyone standing at the counter trying to decide what to get (what’s to decide?  DOGS!), then maneuvered around those trying to figure out how to pay, handed the cashier my singles and was on my way.

Mid 4; Mr. Newman partakes of the cheese.  He would not eat another dog that night without cheese.  I told you it was a good idea.

End 5; I’ve eaten 2 of the 3 dogs I bought after the 3rd and start the last one.  It was cold.  The dog, that is.  Also, Dr. Leyh was nowhere to be found, having left in search of ice cream.

End 6; Dr. Leyh is back.  He had clearly been a little off most of the game, but now he was back with a vengeance, yelling whatever came to mind.  Also, Mrs. Brumbaugh found some cotton candy with the help of Mr. Trego.  They walked two thirds of the park looking for it.  That’s a long way to walk when there’s dogs at the bottom of the steps.  I was struggling with that last dog, but I decided if I could run a marathon in 40 mph winds, I could finish a last dog.  Oh yeah, it was 7-2 Phillies at that point.

7th Inning Stretch; I finish my 10th dog.  Historic photo courtesy of Mrs. Brumbaugh.

End 7; time to hit the road.  I was feeling pretty good at this point.  Thirsty, but good.  I don’t like leaving early, you never know what you’ll miss (say, for example, a Ryan Howard Grand Slam) but a slight food coma was setting in.

9:50; the Schuykill Expressway is empty for the ride home.  As we tallied up the dog count, I led the league with 10, Mr. Newman had 7, Mr. Chmil had 6.  We combined for 49 dogs over 12 people.  Mrs. Brumbaugh had none.  Potentially we could have had 50 dogs.  I thought that was grounds for booting her out of the van right then and there.  She said it was better than eating veggie dogs and a tofu cheese ’steak’ like Mr. DePaul’s student teacher, but not eating a dog at all is worse.  She did make up for it by playing Name that Tune with her iPhone.

10:32; we get off the turnpike.  Somehow Mr. Virmani made it from South Philly to Adamstown in just about an hour.

10:43; we have to top off the rental van’s gas tank.  We stopped at Sheetz and I was seriously tempted to drink the stuff in the windshield squeegee bucket I was so thirsty.  It is a full day later and I’m still thirsty.

11:23; home at last.  It was a great trip; a lot of fun.  When I got home I drank about a liter and a half of water.  I crawled into bed; usually I sleep face down, but not in this case.  I had to sleep on my side to keep the pressure off my stomach.

Pardon me while I defend my hometown hero.

It seems that no one can mention Jamie Moyer without mentioning how old he is.  In specific I’m talking about sportswriters.  Chipper Jones made a comment about Moyer being 87 years old.  That was hyperbole and it was funny.  Sportwriters aren’t exaggerating every time they mention his age.

I guess it isn’t the age-ism that upsets me, it is the sheer bafflement writers express over his success at such an ‘advanced’ age.  Maybe if these same sports writers would stop assuming that Moyer is past his prime, or over the hill, or how he’s the oldest to do this or the oldest to do that, they could focus not on that he is successful, but rather how he is successful.

This isn’t a defense of my home town; there’s plenty of reasons I don’t live there now, but Souderton was a good place to grow up. Not much was just handed to kids; there was more than a little work involved (unless you lived in Harleysville).  I know this is coming off as a ‘In my day we walked 8 miles to school, uphill both ways’ statement, but consider:

• Moyer went to Indian Crest JH (now MS) before the renovations.  I’d say that school had a good bit to do with learning focus and concentration.  How else can you make it through 7th through 9th grades will no walls between classrooms?  There were distractions on all sides, not the least of which was Mr. Frey playing with his Zippo throughout each class.  (Seriously, there were no walls.  It was some hippy-nonsense design that kids would go to learning stations set up throughout the giant open space.  That was quickly abandoned in favor of bookshelves and portable dividers.  You had to learn to focus despite distractions, or at least how to multi-task and pay attention to 2 or 3 classes at once.  And when it was quite you could hear the telltale metallic ‘clink’ three rooms away.)
• For intensity, nothing beats a junior high gym teacher who would call out ‘Snap ‘em’ and expect the entire class to snap the elastic on their jock straps simultaneously (obviously not co-ed gym).  And if the class did it wrong, they did it until they got it right.  Leiphart’s World has nothing on Jacktivities.
• Moyer developed stamina for the long haul working summers for the borough mowing lawns as a teen, then playing Legion ball at night.  His high school and legion coach worked as a mason by day, coach at night.  I’m sure that on more than one occasion Moyer schlepped bags of concrete.  When not playing ball, he developed strong legs riding his bike to the Souderton pool (which was an uphill ride both ways if you used Wile Ave. to get there), then navigating the changing rooms without falling over on the polished smooth concrete floors.
• Come to think of it, I’m not sure this needs to be written.  Sportswriters giving up on him really isn’t an issue.  People give up on him all the time and it doesn’t phase him.  One English teacher told him he’d never pitch in the majors.  After a few years bouncing around in the majors, he spent a year in the minors after refusing an offer for a coaching position.  That was almost 20 years ago.
• He’s a nice guy, frequently winning humanitarian awards from MLB.  He’s got time for kids (he better with 8 of them at home).  Once I saw him pitch for the Toledo Mud Hens against the Rochester Red Wings.  After he got pulled, my dad walked me down to the locker room and knocked on the door.  Dad dropped a few names to the clubhouse attendant and Moyer came out, talked to us for about 5 minutes and signed a baseball for me.  I still have it.
• Former teachers describe him as not the brightest kid, but he’s baseball smart, and his work ethic helps.  He studies opposing hitters relentlessly via written notes and video which allows him to out-think batters.  His change up (a frequent target of mocking by writers, since how can you have a change up when your fastball is low 80s?) is a result of a change in mechanics in his legs, not his arm motion.  And the reasoning is brilliant:  hitters can’t pick up a change up watching the legs, they’re busy watching the ball.

What I like most about Moyer is that he plays because he likes the game.  All those years ago he could have taken a cushy coaching job.  He could have had a fairy tale ending, retiring on top in 2008.  Like a left handed Energizer bunny, he keeps going and going and going…

And for those scoring at home, not once did I mention how old he is, or the age records he’s set.  At 260+ career wins, I think we’ll see him pitch at least until he gets to 300.

And then he’ll reinvent himself as a knuckleballer.

Watching The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network (excellent, by the way, easy half and half on the milk scale for the whole season, individual episodes were heavy cream) this season has gotten me thinking about the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan.

On Mustafar in ROTS Obi-Wan tells Anakin he was like a brother to him.  The Clone Wars is likely setting the groundwork for that statement, although most of the interactions have shown Anakin to be subordinate to Obi-Wan.  What I really want to get at though, is the end of that fight on Mustafar.

Anakin (now Darth Vader in name if not in costume), in a fit of hubris rivaled only by Scott Boras going into the hot stove season, attacks Obi-Wan who has already declared that he has won since he is standing on higher ground (+3 to hit from higher ground?).  Obi-Wan cuts off some limbs, Vader is engulfed in flames and Obi-Wan leaves.

Let me consider some other outcomes.  First, what happens if Vader doesn’t attack from the lower ground?  There’s a few possibilities.  One is Obi-Wan attacking of his own accord, down hill.  I don’t think he would do this as this would certainly not be very Jedi-like.  But if Obi-Wan doesn’t attack, what does Vader do?  It is possible that Vader stands there and waits.  If the fight is stalled for long enough (until Palpatine shows up, since he is on his way to check that Vader killed off the separatist leaders) Obi-Wan is going to lose big time.  In fact, from the perspective of the Sith, that’s a best case scenario.  If Obi-Wan doesn’t survive, Luke and Leia likely aren’t born.  At the very least, Leia certainly doesn’t come seeking Obi-Wan, starting off the events of ANH.

What does happen is a gruesome dismembering of Vader and Obi-Wan leaving him.  But what is Obi-Wan thinking, just leaving like he does?  Does he figure the lava will take over and Vader will die?  That’s awfully presumptuous of him (Vader is a Force user, after all, and ultimately, 18 years later, this costs Obi-Wan his life).  The alternative would be killing Vader right there, but here again, that’s not very Jedi-like.  A truly compassionate Jedi would have tried to rescue him.

In leaving Vader for dead, Obi-Wan is just as bad as Vader in a very black and white interpretation of light and dark sides.  Looking to the gray areas, he doesn’t completely fall to the dark side.  I think the wistful look as he reminisces about Anakin with Luke in ANH is part regret, part fond memories of the good times.  Following Vader’s attack, had Obi-Wan tried to help him as a compassionate Jedi ought, maybe Palpatine’s rise to power stops right there.

This is really 2 topics, combined in one post.

My three year old started Iddy Biddy soccer on Saturday.  He’s on the gray team.  Before I’m condemned as a helicopter parent that’s pushing his kid to be a soccer player, let me defend the program.  It strikes the perfect balance between the ‘pushing him until he burns out’ stereotype and the ‘politically correct, everybody gets a trophy’ stereotype.  The sessions are an hour long, 40 minutes of skills and drills, then 20 minutes of a ‘game.’  The ‘game’ consists of one color vs. another, and the coaches make certain to point the kids in the right direction (actually a very important step).  There’s no score, and there’s no strategy and it is hysterical.

When we first arrived I was stunned to see a 3 year old wearing cleats, shin guards and tape on his ankles.  This is clearly a family that falls into the ‘pushing him until he burns out’ stereotype.  Was it wrong of me to get a small sense of satisfaction watching the kid cry his eyes out clinging to his dad’s leg because he didn’t want to play?  I mean, I feel bad for the kid, don’t get me wrong, but I just want to go to the dad, point at the kid’s Adidas and laugh.

Before the session started, I told my son to take a ball and kick it around.  He did this in the most serious fashion possible, weaving in and out of other kids and parents.  After getting his shirt (which he showed off like this is the finest garment he’s ever owned) his first drill was dribbling.  The kids were to take the ball, dribble from one cone to another (5 m away) and back.  The instructor defined dribbling as kicking the ball and running, keeping the ball close to your feet.  My boy puts on his serious face, winds up, and kicks the ball the whole way to the other cone.  He then runs to the other cone, and boots the ball back again in one shot.  Eventually he got the hang of it.

Next was passing.  Here his one-touch skills should have been an asset.  However, he had dribbling on his mind, so he spent most of the passing time dribbling the ball to his partner.  Fortunately he had his serious face on the whole time.

By the time shooting rolled around, he had the hang of it and his face didn’t quite look like he had some bad milk on his cereal.  His first shot was good, but then he kept fading left.  He’d chase the ball, and then being right footed, circle it entirely before squaring up and driving it left again.  The best part was when he did score:  his method to retrieve the ball was to crawl in to the little goal, grab the ball, then try to stand up, nearly upending the goal as the kid behind him in line was shooting.

During the game portion of the session, his gray team matched up with the blue.  Gray clearly had the upper hand, if only because the blue team was hemorrhaging players.  By the end, it was 9-2.  Not the score, but players on the field.  And my boy only went the wrong way with the ball once.

Saturday evening brought the U.S. premiere of the latest season of Doctor Who on BBC America.  Everything’s new:  producer, writer, companion, Doctor.  I was a little apprehensive.  I loved David Tennant as the Doctor.  I was dismayed to hear that he was leaving.  One of the former producers of the show described him as ‘verbally dexterous’ which nails it exactly.  An Irish actor, he says things so fast, and in an English accent, most of it I couldn’t understand.  What I could understand was fantastic (my favorite was when he defined a ‘happy number’ then asked ‘…don’t they teach recreational mathematics anymore?’).  I was excited for a new companion though.  Martha Jones and Rose Tyler were good, Donna Noble not so much (her grand dad was better than she was).

In the preview images, Matt Smith didn’t look nearly so crazy in the eyes as Tennant.  I wasn’t sure he could live up to the role.  I’m relieved to say it looks like he’ll make it.  He’s a good physical actor, and he rattled off some great bursts of dialogue of his own (my favorite, describing a virus he wrote on an iPhone:  ‘…just a tiny bit alive’).  The new companion Amy Pond is more in the vein of a Martha Jones rather than Donna Noble, so I’m looking forward to that.  And as I watched the episode, I realized I had been missing the episodic nature of the show.  It can just be an isolated hour of Amy and the Doctor.  When Tennant announced his depature, the show went into extreme serial mode.  It was great, but I had forgotten how much fun closure at the end of an hour long episode can be.  I give it an anticipatory ‘whole’ on the milk scale.  My DVR is set.