Ahhh Nuts!

This is Marcus Tulio Tanaka. He is my favorite player on Japan's World Cup team. Unfortunately, Japan just lost moments ago to Paraguay in the shoot out phase after 120 minutes of soccer.

I don't know a lot about soccer, or Japanese soccer, but I thought the team got away from their game of advancing the ball through passing. I thought that today there were more long passes, which seemed to be a lower percentage deal.

I liked the way Japan played the game and I am sorry to see them leave the tournament. My heart goes out to the defenseman who hit the crossbar with his shot.

This is the third of three teams that I was pulling for to have fallen. I have the touch.

BU Orientation

On Wednesday we all met in Boston for the Orientation to BU. First to check in and get all our stuff into our dorm rooms (Dave and mine were great, but the girls had the more traditional and hot dorm rooms). The next step is off to lunch at the Afghan or Agha or something like that. I had a great pesto sandwich.

Here were my digs for the three nights. The room

Dave and I shared is more like an apartment with a full kitchen and a great view from the ninth floor. This building is just one year old, so everything looks great. Very comfortable accommodations. The girls did not have such nice rooms. They didn't have air conditioning and as a result, I think they have far less sleep.

Here is the aforementioned kitchen. Nicer than my first apartment in Hood River, by far.

Here are two views from our dorm room.

The first is in the midst of a storm that was blowing through and the second is the view early in the morning. A great view for a dorm room, or any room.

In the shadows on the field some group of guys in BU shorts are running lots of half-field sprints. Not just from here to there, but from goal line to mid-field, back to the goal line and then ending up at midfield. The real deal.

Here we are down at Quincy Market. In the background is the Old Town Hall I believe. Someone told us that the Declaration of Independence was signed there. I should know that - if it was true...

This is a better shot of the gang. Grace was wearing sandals and had very sore feet. I tried to talk her into getting alternative footwear, but the fiscally prudent young lady would have none of it. A real trooper.

When we got down to Quincy Market there were several street theater productions. The best was a group of five of six African American men who danced and did acrobatics. Here, in the finale, one of the men is jumping over two volunteers. Great fun.

Here is a woman who is covered in silver paint. This was hard for me to watch because I kept thinking how horrible that must be for her health. She was very good.

Grace and Dave at the harbor.

Dave and I at the harbor.

Dave sitting and thinking. This is on Friday, after Orientation is all over. It was a beautiful day.

Everyone is lost in the beauty of the moment.

As the sun was setting we returned to our "dorm room". We went up to the twenty-sixth floor to check out the view and it was spectacular.

Grace and Dave talk to Will as he drives back to Minnesota and encounters the same storm that tore up much of Golden Valley, where Breck School is located.

It was a great adventure. This is looking west over a train yard, and beyond that are the athletic fields for Harvard.

My three days in Boston were filled with emotional ups and downs as I try and picture sending Maura off to college in eight weeks.

The French, the English, the Americans and the World Cup

I don't know what about this event I find so interesting, but I love watching the World Cup. As I sit down to gather my thoughts this morning the French team is falling apart after two poor outings, a player was dismissed from the team, someone leaked locker room information to the press, and now a coach and two officials have quit. This kind of typifies the tournament so far.

Many countries where soccer is king (England, France, Spain, Italy, just to name a few) have gotten off to poor starts. Teams that are loaded with stars, but they don't seem to play well together. The English are too tense to shoot (according to the Scottish commentator); the French are fighting everything but the opponent, and the Italians needed a flop in the box to tie New Zealand. Yes, that would be the New Zealand, with no domestic soccer league. The New Zealand who had never scored a goal, or been ahead in a World Cup game. I wish I could read Italian this morning...Wouldn't it be great to read what the Italian press has to say.

This morning I watched Portugal play an artful first half against North Korea. The Portugal's first goal was one of the most beautiful I have seen to date. A brilliant through ball that arrives at the edge of the box at the same time a forward shows up to direct it into the net. Great stuff. I can't speak to the rest of the game (which turned into a seven-nil rout).

The North Koreans. There is a player from Japan whose parents are from North Korea and he is playing on the North Korean team. If you look at his jersey, they sewed his name over someone else's. They don't even have enough money for jerseys for all of their players. How very sad. I hope players from other nations are treating the North Koreans with kindness - Take-a-North-Korean-Player-to-Dinner ought to be an official human rights campaign.

I liked watching the North Koreans. Their players didn't (at least in the first half, when I was watching) take dives for calls. They didn't curl up as if mortally injured one minute, only to be fine 60 seconds later. I never saw a North Korean player belly ache to a referee about a call. Good stuff. When I play in the World Cup, I want to play like a North Korean...

The Art of Racing In the Rain

I had several reasons to "spit the bit" on this title. Who wants to read a book about car racing, with a main character who dies of cancer? Don't care about car racing, and I have been down the cancer avenue, so, "No thanks. I take a pass." Or so I thought....

Three nights later I finished the book, which is quite rare for me to blast through something quite so fast.

This story is told by a lovable dog and a family that is struggling to stay together. Somehow this all worked enough for me. The first night I tried to read this I quit after two pages, not wanting to think about death and my soul (immortal or not). The second night I gave the book a try I absolutely fell into the story. I can't remember what pulled me in, but I bit - hook, line, and sinker.

So I finished this clever tale last night. As I waited for sleep to come, I tried to think about what shortcomings the story had, and I have to confess that I found it all too believable. The author did a very clever job of adding twists, like the disappearing barracuda lawyer, et al.

I would give this a three and a half paws up rating (out of four paws).

"Alone in Berlin" - Tough Times

I have been working my way slowly through Alone in Berlin since late March when I picked up the book. The last few days I have had more time to read and I was able to finish the last two hundred pages, and I am glad that I stuck with it.

I didn't realize until two days ago that this title was written in 1946. I was about to "spit the bit" on this title when a far more wise reader than I asked me why should it matter when it was written. True.

This is a story about a family in Berlin during the Second World War. They lose their son in the war and decide to resist the Nazis as a result. The book is about all the people who get sucked in as the Nazi's seek to find our who is creating a mild disturbance.

Apparently a good portion of the book is somewhat biographical as the author, Hans Fallada (pen name), was a writer during the Nazi regime and he had significant "ups" and "downs" during the Nazi era.

It was sobering to see what happens when people are encouraged to turn each other in and individual rights are ignored. Scary.

Summer Tour - Three Cities in Four Days....

So, it is Sunday, June 13 and Erik and I have seven o'clock flights out of Minneapolis. Imagine our shock to see the world's longest lines at that hour. Erik made his flight and I missed mine. I ended up on a later flight to Seattle where I picked up Jeff and we started the drive down to Portland to help Erik get situated in his new humble abode.

Here is a tiny shot of Erik's new place. As we spent the next two days trying to provision the house, it became clear that lots of LC students lived in the neighborhood.

Here is shot of the Fred Meyer's where we did a lot of shopping. Really kind of a sad looking store at this point. Neither Fred Meyer's nor the Target (that took us hours to find - following the blue dot on the iPhone) were very impressive stores. This Fred Meyer's doesn't look to have changed since I was in town over 30 years ago - that is a lifetime in the retail world...



Jeff and I drove back to Seattle on Tuesday, only to find the Emerald City basking in some well deserved sunshine. After a quick run to Ken's for libation, we hit the front porch to read and ruminate. This isn't Jeff's house, but it is a typical Seattle looking street corner in his neighborhood, Greenway.

Wednesday morning I headed to Sea-Tac and began the trip east. Seated in row 46, I started to get nervous about my ability to catch the connecting flight in Minneapolis. Sure enough, we hit the gate in the Mill City at 6:20 and it took twenty painful minutes to get off the plane. From there I ran through the "G" concourse, all the away across the center part of the airport to gate D3. As I was leaving "G" I heard the final call for my flight. I almost gave up (as I was not in proper shape to sprint through an airport), but I somehow managed to squeak in under the wire. As I panted to my seat, a rosy-red face, and beginning to sweat like a race horse, they closed the airplane. This has been a trip of amazing plane adventures.

This morning I am in DC - short on sleep, but happy to be done with the heavy lifting for a few days.