Why should I care

I have limited time, and I've only seen two games of the Brier this week. True, it's only tuesday, but there have been a lot of games. TSN tells me I can watch QB v NB. That's James Gratton v Jean-Michel Menard. Even though Menard won this thing a couple of years ago, no one but his family thinks he has a shot this year. And Gratton has no shot. So why watch this game? If you've seen it, tell me why I should bother. I mean, TSN is also telling me I can watch AL v MB.

Matt.

My favorite four-rock rule call

You have hammer in a close game. They throw it top four, you throw a corner guard. They throw a really tight guard. Most teams elect to play the follow it down freeze, but I saw Howard's team play a board weight run back. You hit the guard (which you can't take out of play) onto a rock in the rings (which you can take out of play).

If you nut it -- in other words if you hit it perfectly straight back, then you leave a rock in the eight foot guarded behind your tight guard. It's not really a scoring rock, so you sort of have control of the end. If you hit the guard back on a little angle, you might even shoot it over to a wing, which is even better.

The real risk is trying the shot and missing the one in the rings. Since you're throwing board, you will remove the guard (even on the bigger ice surface), which results in a wasted shot.

But if you have confidence in your lead, I love this shot for a couple of reasons.

It will deflate the other team. Their lead just did the top four tight guard that usually means they control an end, and all of a sudden you throw the perfect counter punch. Plus, they will think twice about playing by the book shots against you because you seem to be playing from a different book.

it's a little thing, but it's the thing that's helping Ontario and Alberta steam roll. They make calls like this on a regular basis that rock most of the teams at the Brier into playing outside their games.

And FYI: Howard made this call versus Burtnyk. And even though it definitely didn't rock Kerry, I'll bet it rocked his lead.

In parise of my vac sealer

I just had roast turkey and potatoes. The potatoes were new, the Turkey was left over from Thanksgiving.

Thus, the title of this post. That's it.

The Brier: Ontario vs NL. Draw 2

This is the 5th end. Already I wonder a little bit about mystic. I'll bet that when most teams play Brad Gushue, Olympic Gold Medalist, Brad gets a few shots an end that the other guy plays because he's playing Mark Nichols and Brad Gushue, two dudes who can mash with the best of them.

However, when Gushue plays Howard (also Martin, Burtnyk, Simmons and Menard) he has to play on merit. And more and more I see him make tactical errors of judgement that his team doesn't seem to talk him out of.

In the fifth end of the second draw (available here if you didn't see it), Glenn's front end talked Rich and Glenn into a new shot. Rich made a double peel of two guards to leave this situation:

It's Gushue's first, he's yellow, he's down 3-1 and he doesn't have the hammer. He talks about a double on the front two red stones, but points out that a double would bring a blank end into play. He's right about that. So he decides to play a guard. But this is the key: he knows that the guard won't guard everything. He knows that Glenn can make hit the second red rock and slash it onto shot rock. So he wants the guard to be on the left side of center line in order to be able to make the double on his last one -- which brings the blank into play. Here's the guard with bonus arrow showing Glenn's shot:


So lets recap for a second: Brad didn't like the double because it brought the blank in play. He instead liked a guard that left a fairly easy shot for Cliffy that would leave him a double so Cliffy could blank. Glenn makes the shot and Brad tries a thin double that had he made it, would have defied the laws of physics, meaning he was resigned to giving up a deuce and the game.

Now, I would have played the double on the two reds on Brad's first. After Richie makes the double peel, you tell him good shot, you get mildly annoyed that the front end had to talk one of the most experienced back ends at the brier into a different shot and move onto the next end.

But lets say you agree with Brad that you don't want to leave Cliffy a chance at a blank. Then lets go back to the scenario on Brad's first and wonder why the team didn't come down and talk

Here's the end again:


Why not play a little split on your yellow? Remember, we're in the mindset that a blank end is bad. We want to be aggressive. You can't guard everything, so why guard? You clip yellow about 5 inches, and make sure your shooter is at least third shot. So picture the end with the yellow rock moved over so you can see the center line and another rock back four to the left a little. Glenn would most like play a little tap on the front rocks and hope he lines something up better and then you guard.

Maybe Brad's front end is scared to talk him out of shots because the last front end to do that got cut. I don't know, but I do know that this end was not well thought out by Brad. And he doesn't seem to have any help in that area.

Ah, the Brier

The Brier is my favorite TV event of all time. Don't get me wrong, I've been to a Brier, and that's also fun, but for me, there's nothing better than sitting alone, or with other curlers, and watching the Brier on the tube (or the computer monitor since TSN doesn't make it to the B'lo).

We're allowed into the conversations. Into the shots. And even though there will be people who argue that some provinces (or even the north part of some provinces) shouldn't be allowed into the Brier, there's something wonderfully open about people getting a shot to represent their province at Canada's best sporting event.

I can't wait. And since the girls are away this weekend, and they keep telling me that it's going to snow all weekend, then I suspect I'll have nothing to do but watch.

Yaaaa!

Oh, and thanks or the shout out Posada.

This election year

This is going to be a really interesting election year, I think. This is a massive generalization, but I think that creative people tend to be democrats and more business-like people are republicans.

In other words, Democrats are content creators and Republicans are content producers. Thus, we get a meme that the press is liberal, when the press is a huge corporation that is most definitely not liberal. So the new York Times, a huge corporation that owns more than just the times, can be both a left wing paper and one of the biggest cheerleaders for the War in Iraq at the same time.

All that I just wrote is arguable, but this is my point. Democrats as content creators no longer need the okay of large businesses to run their content. in this new media era, people can throw down a slick video and let the internet spread it.

Thus:



And the great part is, we're going to see a lot more people do this in the coming months. Especially when all the content created will be for one candidate, whoever he or she is.

I miss the girls

I miss the girls.

Not gonna lie to you. Lucy and romeo are great, but the girls make the morning fun. This morning was hard to get up. Yes, that might because Lucy was laying on my head, but it's also because Autumn and Rhona are in Florida, hanging with the Fam.

I understand Autumn is going to the Tampa zoo today. It's her first big city zoo. And I'm here.

Someone grab a violin for me.

Bored in Boston

So I'm at a conference in Boston. My wife and little girl are, at this point, on the last leg of a trip to Florida. I'll be without them for a week.

But back to boredom. It doesn't matter what the topic is, a good presenter makes a good presentation. Right now, the lunchtime guy is not a good presenter -- as evidenced from the fact that I am blogging. THe guy just before this guy was hilarious. He was born scottish but sounded like he lived in the US for long enough to almost lose the accent, but not quite.

The guy right now is german and boring.

Corn is smarter than you

So sayeth the prophet of food, Michael Pollan.

Autumn loves Heinz ketchup. We had curry and chips last night with a side salad. It was a good meal, but we allowed Autumn to have some chips. Mom put the ketchup on the chips, and the cheeky little girl licked off the ketchup.

Which brought up a talk about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). When you're done reading this, take a look through your food and see what doesn't have HFCS in it.

If, in an evolutionary sense, the goal of every species is to propagate the species, then corn is winning. We're about to use it as a fuel in cars as well as soda. It's in damn near everything in our house, and we try to get rid of it.

You can't fight it.

Way cool

This is a video of people from 1 to 100 playing a drum. Awesome.



Hey parent's, does this give you any ideas? I want to shoot Autumn doing something every year. Maybe the yellow balloons.

Autumn's out of daycare

If you're a parent, and you drop your kids off to day care, then you know the feeling. When I put her down and she runs to my leg crying "Daddy, daddy, daddy" my heart breaks, melts, whatever metaphor you need. I reach down, give her a hug and feel her grab me with all the strength she can muster in her little arms, and I look around.

She was at a new day care. The one everyone says is awesome. It's in the city and on the way to work. In the summer, Rhona could walk. The other idea is that we could meet other people, families, and make new friends.

So we signed up. Autumn doesn't know any of the above, she just knows that the place she used to go is new. All new people. So, when the hugs, and leg hugs, and cries come, we're handing her to people she barely knows. And that's hard for all of us.

But what happened next was simply bad luck. Her new teacher kept calling in sick. That really isn't the fault of the day care, but it's a cause for concern. We're trying to hand off a visibly upset Autumn to someone she can trust, and that someone kept changing. And since it was an unexpected absence, they weren't always quick to solve the issue.

So we pulled her. We asked for our money back, and took her out. At this moment in time, she is no longer in day-care. We have mixed feelings about that. but this is the next adventure for Rhona and Autumn.

Soups no longer on

This is about the Sabres. They just traded Brian Campbell for a former fist round pick. A 23 year old (they were the youngest team in the league and they just got younger -- is that good or bad...Meg?)

Anyway, the argument I heard for trading his was that it was important so that they got something for him. I thought that if he stayed they would GET 3 months of him playing defense, which is a pretty significant thing, but instead, they traded him and got something else.

I think this something else is less significant, but it won't be going away at the end of this season. So it's a trade off trade.

And the thing is, he wasn't going to stay. He's not the number one defenseman on the team (that's Hank Tallinder and Tony Lydman), so you can't pay him number one money. And thus, he was going away. He was leaving.

So I guess the Sabres got something. Lets hope they didn't need Campbell to make the playoffs.

Curling

This past weekend was the Canadian woman's curling championships, AKA the Scotties. In the semi final on Saturday, the lead of the Ontario made two tick shots. If you know nothing about curling, know one thing: the tick shot is a hard shot.

Or, it was. You see, they were playing the final on the new international-sized sheet. This got me thinking about two things:

1. The Game is officially different at national and international events. The US women were playing their final at around the same time. Only, their final was played on the normal every day sized sheet that we all normally play on. Meaning, the Canadian women, and men, will have a leg up.
2. The tick shot is easier. Again, if you know nothing about curling, know this: the tick shot is easier now.

I think the first thing has some serious ramifications on our game. The great part of this game is that it used to be the same. Now, the very best teams in the world will be playing on ice surfaces that we normal players can't pay on. We can't go around corner guards from the outside in. We can't play the tick shot a little more aggressively. The better teams can. Does this mean the better teams are going to widen their gap? I think it does. I think I'll research this a little more.

The cost of meat

This isn't an anti-meat post. I like meat, and plan to continue my omnivorous ways for some time. However, chicken and beef are expensive, so at our house, we consume it a lot less.

Expensive you say?

Why, you could simply go to Sam's Club and buy a box of beef burgers for a $1. better still, you could get 100 chicken breasts for $0.25 (or some ridiculously inexpensive price).

And when you pay that extraordinary price, you have to turn off your brain. Because somewhere deep in your conscious, you know that to make meat this cheap, they have to cut some corners. There's a cost, but it's preferable to ignore it and add some BBQ sauce to make it all taste good.

Not us, which means meat is a luxury item in these United States. (Canada has a regulatory system with power. In the US, recalls are voluntary).

What do you think?

10 days until the beach.

we can't wait to go back to florida in ten days... it can't possibly come soon enough.

sniff sniff, cough, cough.

Rockstar curling

So, I signed up. Why not, really. The 'try-outs' might be in Utica, and driving to Utica for a day might be worth it. We'll see. In the meantime, check this out, I suspect these dudes will be signing up as well.

My vote might count

I got my interview date with the nice people at Homeland Security. At this point, I will go in there and answer any questions about my thoughts, feelings and desires. I have no idea what we'll talk about in there. Perhaps they'll ask me why I want to be a citizen. Really, I want to be a citizen for a couple of reasons.

1. To vote. I've now lived her over five years, and in those five years I haven't voted. Can't. And I used to vote in everything. Local, provincial, federal, gimme a vote and i voted. Soon, I'll be a voter again.
2. Curling. Hey, what the heck. You never know. Rockstar on.
3. Why not? I live here. Might as well get the membership card.

All this assumes they let me in, of course. And that's no gimme.

You are what you eat, eats

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food:

"Essentially, the idea is that we're part of the food chain, and in the food chain creatures eat other creatures, and so you can't just say, "This is beef." It's a very different food depending on what that cow or steer ate. A steer that was finished on grass is a completely different food than one that was finished on corn and industrial by-products in a feed lot. We don't pay enough attention to that. If you're eating from a grass-based food chain, you're getting a very different diet than if you're getting a corn-based diet."

You should read the book. It's out. If you're not convinced by this simple piece of insight, then read some more from the article it came from.

Random Autumn picture: We miss nanny and granddad.

Will this be the choice?

This is will.i.am and gang doing Barack Obama.



This is the same gang doing John McCain.



Keep in mind, this is a conversation going on in a place that didn't exist in the last election. It exists now, and when you see these two videos, it shows you the difference, but also the power of this medium. Especially back to back.

FISA, America, a snuggly bear

This is great. It's all about FISA. It's all about America. Told to you by a snuggly bear.

Autumn in my hat

It's cold outside these days. It is winter. And I wear my Arsenal hat proudly, even though they're down to one trophy, and they don't start an Englishman.

Anyway, when I get home from work, Autumn and Rhona are always thrilled to see me. Autumn likes to come into my arms, give me a hug, and the take off my hat. After pointing to it and saying 'hat'.

Then, of course, she throws it one her head. This is her wearing the hat, intrigued by the lens cap of the camera we used to take the picture.

(sob) my Yahoo mail

The life of a copywriter is fluid, to say the least. I've now worked at 6 different places, and while I admit that for a time in my life, I was more focussed on Curling than career, it meant that every time I left a place, i left the e-mail address there. That's why I almost got a Microsoft hotmail account.

Almost.

Microsoft bought hotmail before I could sign up. And then along came Yahoo. I grabbed a yahoo e-mail address over 10 years ago. I didn't want a microsoft owned e-mail. At the time, it was partly because I thought they were ruining the computing experience with their crappy programs that didn't really work on a mac, but I had to use anyway, because EVERYONE used Word. no, it was more the clunkiness with hotmail compared to Yahoo Mail.

Rhona also had Yahoo mail.

Well, times up it seems. Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. if it happens, our free-mail addresses will be owned by Microsoft.

Can anyone say Gmail? I've switched. If you know my yahoo e-mail, then instead of yahoo.com, simply change it with gmail.com.

The fall-out of this weekend

It's a coming of age moment in a toddler's life. The day that said Toddler officially falls out of her crib. This weekend was the day.

Autumn fell out of her crib this weekend. It was, as you can imagine, a scary moment. Especially since I was in her room when it happened.

It was nap time. She wasn't really getting the idea, even after stories and downtime. So, with the lights off, I tried a trick that worked a couple of times in the past. I laid down on the floor in her room and closed my eyes. The thinking is, she'll see me asleep and copy me.

Only, this time, she decided to join me.

When the crash came, it freaked me out. One second I'm laying on the ground, the next second there's a thump followed by a wail. And I look over and autumn's head is right beside mine. I'm serious, she missed me by about three inches. had our heads hit, this message might not have the same tone.

They didn't. And outside of being seriously freaked out, Autumn was okay. Rhona came running (she heard the thump) and we all just hugged. After about 20 minutes, she was calmed down enough to go play again. No nap.

Next step. A toddler bed. This is the signal. When she can get out of the crib it's time to get her out of the crib.

Send Autumn an e-mail

At Rhona's baby shower, they played this little game whereby everyone writes a birthday card to Autumn for the next 19 years. Each year, she'll open a card from 2006.

We have another time capsule option. In order to secure her name, I grabbed her a gmail account. If you want to say hello, tell her a joke, or simply point out the weather that day, then e-mail her at autumnhames at gmail dot com (sorry, you have to write the e-mail address in yourself).

I'm not going to read them, but I'll go in once in a while to keep it active.

wiggle hell

The wiggles. I decided moments ago to do a quick search for the string "i hate the wiggles"... and it turns out i am not alone. Hate is a strong word but let's just say i hate that autumn loves the wiggles so much. I have been sick for about a week now and when up at 1-3am I find myself singing wiggles songs... believe me I would rather humm along to a quality jjcale tune or elizabeth mitchell at the very least... but now- "i think dorothy is doing some mowing guys" .... runs through my head!

Originally we decided autumn wouldn't watch ANY tv... now, that she is almost 20 months, I will admit- she often watches about 20-30 minutes in the morning- this let's me get something done ... in taking a quick poll of the other moms i know there is no need to feel guilty about this- but somehow i do. perhaps if autumn would be willing to watch something other than the wiggles the guilt would subside.

check out the strong opinions from other wiggle-haters.

http://noirwriter.blogspot.com/2006/06/sweet-jesus-do-i-hate-wiggles.html

The rule of law

We're at the point in Autumn's life where we have to begin to set down rules. Call it the rule of law. She's not allowed to dance on the table. She's not allowed to pick up the phone. She can't get everything she wants.

Admittedly, it's awfully cute to watch her dance on the table, but we can't allow it. There needs to be rules. And consequences. Meltdowns be damned.

At least, that's the theory. Only yesterday, the Senate of this country gave retroactive immunity to telecom companies who broke the law. It's not even open for debate that Verizon, AT&T and Sprint broke the law. You don't give retroactive immunity to someone who's innocent. Thus, it's all in the framing of the immunity. The President calls them Patriotic companies because they helped him fight terror. The problem with that is simple: if you believe what they did was good and right, then there should be no need to grant them immunity.

And yet, immunity was granted.

People reading this might think this is an incredible stretch to make. Us telling Autumn no and then holding her to a no doesn't compare to the delicate action of the government, whose role it is to enforce the laws of the land.

Perhaps it's a stretch. But I've been thinking a lot about the rule of law in this country, and at the same time, we're making attempts at setting down rules for Autumn. The blog was always meant to talk about Autumn's life in context with what's going on in the rest of the world.

Get skype

autumn loves Skype. It's a free program that lets you make free calls to anyone, anywhere in the world, who has Skype.

We Skype with nanny and granddad down in Clearwater. We skyped with an old friend from New Zealand. We skyped with Uncle Simon and Aunt Christina (side note, the words uncle Simon made Autumn giggle because uncle Simon makes her laugh hysterically.)

Anyway, as soon as we call someone on Skype, Autumn breathlessly watched the computer waiting for the faces and voices to appear and talk to her. To her, the computer is a phone as well.

If you have a video camera attached to your computer, then sign up for Skype (it's free). Look for Matt Hames in Buffalo and lets talk for real.

An update on sleep

She's a sleeper.

(knock, knock)

That was me, knocking on wood. Because, Autumn sleeps through the night. It's now been weeks since she was up (yes, I know, I'm asking for it).

But what the heck. I'm going for it. She's a sleeper.

Goodnight.

A curling reality TV show!

I'm signing up:

"NBC confirmed yesterday it has an exclusive option to air a 10-episode sports reality show that will give the winners a shot at competing in the U.S. championships and even going to the 2010 Olympics."

From here:

Some links on the earth

We're all in trouble. This is why. If you read one thing on global warming, read this.

This is a link to an article on the death of suburbia in the New York Times. I've long thought it was time. Here's a money quote from it:

In 1946, when the American post war housing boom started, the average house was 1,100 square feet and housed 5 people. Fifty years latter, in 1996 the average house would grow to 2,200 square feet and house 2.6 people and by 2007, fueled by easy credit, the average American home would would become the equivalent of a Hummer, “weighing in” at super-sized 2,400 square feet.

Big cars, big houses, big problems. It all kinda goes together.

Most watched football game

In November, 2007, Arsenal played Manchester United. According to the Guardian UK:

'...an estimated 1 billion people around the world watched Arsenal's match with Manchester United..."

The Premiership is thinking about playing league games outside of England. Arsenal V Blackburn in Toronto, for example (I made this up because Rhona and I watched Arsenal V Blackburn Rovers in London).

And we worry about the Bills playing a game a year in Toronto.

One more

Vote for me in this contest!

Submit entry|Create your own contest

Contest details

Photo contest

So I entered Autumn's picture into a contest. I think you have to register though.

Vote for me in this contest!

Submit entry|Create your own contest

Contest details

meltdowns

The glaciers aren't the only things that are melting down: Autumn has some doozy meltdowns.

Last night it was just me and her. When mommy left, I got the normal, expected mommy meltdown.


"Mommy" she cries near the last door that mommy went out of. "Mommy". it comes out in gasps almost, in between cries. When I try to pick her up she does that dead weight thing that parent's understand. She manages to contort her body in such a way that does actually make her 21 pounds feel heavier.

One I do manage to pick her up, I have to guard against the flailing legs. She's just tall enough now that her flailing legs come perilously close to the boys.

I learned that one the hard way.

The only option on a meltdown is really just waiting it out. I can't console her. I can eventually redirect her (what's Lucy doing?), but that doesn't happen immediately.

What are your favorite meltdown ideas?

Potty alert

It was easy to think that Friday night was a fluke. After her bath, I asked Autumn if she wanted to sit on the potty. We do that a lot. No big deal. But this time, she peed. I yelled for Rhona and we spent the next ten minutes high-fiving each other.

But, we thought, no biggie. A serious first, but a trend, not yet.

Then, as if we pressed the repeat button, the same thing on Saturday night. Exactly. After the bath, the question. She sits on the potty and pees. Both nights, she grabs some TP and wipes herself.

And then, and I think this is the best part, she went potty this morning. Not after a bath, just out of the blue. She peed again.

That's three times in three days. That's a trend. We're in for a long haul, but the heavy lifting has begun.

update: at 3:00PM EST on Sunday, Feb 3rd, Autumn went poopy on the potty.

My wife, the photographer

Rhona's photographs are still being featured in the Artvoice photo contest. Here is her and Autumn at the opening.



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