A misty may morning...

Last week when I was too busy to write (thanks finals) but not too busy for a few quiet moments of observation and reflection on my way to school/work, I found myself in a tiny patch of green in the brick and concrete city world. (My campus is actually good for this, it may not be large but it is quite peaceful and they do the best they can to make it not oppressive feeling.)

It was early morning after a night of rain, still heavily overcast and misting with a gentle breeze. The moment I stepped off the street and onto the path the smell changed. Damp, fresh, living and lush. The smell of grass and leaves and wet soil and a pervasive flowery scent. I looked around for the source but could not immediately identify it. Even the air felt alive, wet and heavy and cool. It made me feel clean and fresh when I brushed against it, made me blink and see the world anew every few seconds. The colors were fantastic. Not the sun bright greens of a summer afternoon but the darker woodsy greens that you see only when the stalks of grass have been bowed by water and the trees have drunk their fill.

I walked through a gap between two buildings and into another green space. A few tall trees bordered the edge of the park, their leaves not yet full grown, but it was a smallish tree that was the centerpiece. Bright white flowers with pink centers covered every square inch of branch space and stood out in sharp contrast to the deep green of the moss growing on the trunk. The rain had knocked even more blossoms loose and scattered them in a wide but perfect circle around the base of the tree. Here was the source of the flowery scent.

The tree, the grass, the flowers combined to make a magical moment. I both wished for and was glad I did not have my camera. It was a once in a lifetime image, but perhaps one of those best burned into my memory rather than film. Being forced to hold on and imagine will keep the image from a sad demise in a shoe box or computer file. Perhaps this is selfish, keeping the moment for myself?

The moment disappeared with the mist and the morning. The flowers are gone now, replaced with leaves that rustle in the wind but don't smell nearly as nice. I have my memory though, and finally, a moment to share it.

Imagine with me.

Baseball

I love baseball.

Something about it just makes me happy.
Actually, many things about it make me happy. Its a complicated and often nonsensical game, yet it's governed and monitored with a rigid mathematical system of statistics. There's no fixed time limit so games are more laid back and length is almost completely a factor of relative skill of the teams. Yet as laid back as it is no sport I know of in this country, and especially in this city (Boston), is capable of so many heart wrenchingly exciting moments. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat... I think perhaps it's the suspense that often lends baseball it's edge... You just never know. (But it's a banner industry and the aim of all fantasy league players to try and predict...)

As awesome as it is to get caught up in the rush of a well played game between rivals or a gripping playoff bid, I think the parts I personally like most about baseball is its connection with the seasons. In earliest spring, as the trees bud out and daffodils bloom baseball is also born again. In the summer it reaches maturity and the season shows its character, some teams flower and others fade away. As summer fades and fall begins the leaves on the trees change color just in time for baseball's biggest show. Its a perfect excuse to get outdoors, to feel the atmosphere of the stadium, to jump up at the sound of a well hit ball.

For me baseball is not so much about dissection of past games or prediction of future ones but about the living entity, the feel of the sport. I think this is the part that makes baseball a national pastime... the tangible effects of sun on the skin, smells of fresh cut grass and popcorn. The cool taste of a coke or a beer to wash down a hot dog. The pop and sting of a ball in the mitt playing catch with dad in the backyard. The first successful curveball. The hiss and crackle of static on the radio or the laughter of a group of friends gathered to watch a game on TV. To have an everyday opportunity to witness the birth of legends and heroes.

In today's majors, awash with steroids, stats and money I fear we might begin to loose sight of these things that make baseball so much a part of our national psyche in the first place. We may become jaded with the game because we've become jaded with the system and lost in the numbers. Since obviously this would be a shame I think we should all make a concerted effort to remember what it's all about. And I have a prescription to help you along the way....

For one of my birthday adventures The Girl organized a trip to see the local AAA baseball team, the Pawtucket Red Sox, (or paw sox). Even I was surprised to discover that this much cheaper alternative to a big league game was just as exciting. All of the important elements of the game were in place, from obnoxious fans to the stadium announcements to patterns mowed into the outfield. It is easy to put asside the fact that you don't know any of the players, that you might not be watching the highest caliber of play. It was more about friends and a day out and about a game well played. This was fun. This is baseball.

So get out and watch your high school team, go see a minor league game, check out your local college schedule, play wiffleball in the backyard with your friends or join a summer league. Have ag good time. Smile! Enjoy the game!

ohh.. and... GO RED SOX!!!

happy birthday to me!!!

I used to not care much about birthdays.   It was just another day  in just another year.  However recently I have had a spat of friends that have put a lot more faith into birthdays than I do.  I'm starting to see their point.

It started with arranging birthdays for a few other people.  I really enjoy this aspect.  I like getting into the emotional nitty gritty of it all, cataloging the looks on the faces of gift recipients, basking in that moment when you know that you got everything just right.  Not to mention that the whisky fountain was quite exciting :-).  This got me thinking about other aspects.  For instance, if I was getting so much joy and satisfaction out of helping other people enjoy their birthdays, and those people believe in the magic of birthday moments, who am I to be a birthday Scrooge?

So, this birthday I resolved to put myself first for one day and to let others in my life have the satisfaction of making me feel special in their own way.  I was surprised by how difficult this was at first.  I felt guilty whenever anyone spent money on me or even went out of their way to wish me well.  In hindsight I'm not even sure  why I felt this guilt.   As the day progressed though I began to embrace the spirit of it it's been the best birthday ever!

I got amazing gifts, had amazing food, a baseball game is in the near future and I have the world's best friends, led by my amazing, wonderful, beautiful girl.   

Maybe the best part is the notes though.  I used to think that the facebook note's that flood in on your birthday were silly.  Why just one day?  Why just one line?  This year is different though.  I've taken it as a challenge.  I'm going to reply to all those notes.  If even ONE good conversation develops as a result it will be another magical moment, another wonderful birthday gift!

So, thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday.  I appreciate you all and look forward to a note in the future in return!  And please do enjoy your birthday when it comes round this year.  Let yourself be spoiled, let go, be happy, be you!  You deserve it!

I scream for Ice Cream!

There is nothing much better than an unplanned evening in an ice cream shop discussing bad poetry and dreaming about the future over a frappe and sundae.  

Note for all you wanna-be-poets.  Don't try and be romantic by using the word 'pheremones' in your art.  I don't care if it is a Haiku. 

Just wanted to beifly write about the benefits of spontaneous ice cream.  I'm feeling hopeful because events are conspiring to remind me that it's never too late to be the person you want to be inside... 

It's a small world...

I think that it's one thing to know intellectually all of the neat things that technology can do and another to see it in action.

It will never cease to amaze me how interconnected the world is through the Internet, and the things that high speed data make possible.  Talked to a friend in Australia last night via video chat over a lagless g-mail video connection.  Her sunlit balcony and cheery countenance was transported to our late night gathering as if it was a phone call to a neighbor across the street. We could see the skyscrapers of a distant city and hear the stock cars of the Australian grand prix roar around their endless circuits in the background.  A sense of life and humor transported across oceans and continents on a piece of fiberglass the thickness of a strand of hair to sit with us around the kitchen table and share our conversation like old times.  While an oversimplification of the engineering and science that makes it possible its the spirit that matters anyway.

A great deal of conversation yesterday revolved around other examples of the new found uses of technlogy. While we are all a little wary of the overreaching and all encompassing nature of technology in the modern world (I still keep paper journals and am a crusading advocate of paper snail-mail letters) we are still in awe of its potential applications.   I encounter other examples in my professional life.  Projects are taking place in my office right now to map the environmental hazards of neighborhoods and overlay them with census maps of income levels, crime and other statistics.  All of this data is available real time, uploaded by groups of high-school students from hand held GPS units and portable computers. 

Google can consistently predict the next location of a flu outbreak days before the CDC simply by indexing searches for flu and correlating them with locations of the computers performing the search.  Maps of other outbreaks are made simply by indexing news stories in local papers.  The city of Mumbai tracks its garbage men on google earth to make sure they are doing their jobs properly in the jumble of the million person slums. This year they will be able to track the flood waters of the monsoon in real time with a map that updates every time people text in that the water has reached their doorstep.  This will allow for better allocation of emergency resources and more organized evacuation plans.

It's exciting to live in a time where the possibilities of technology truly seem to be bounded only by the imagination.  Now all we have to do is imagine!  And communicate, whether it be with our neighbors or the other side of the earth.

Spring into spring...

Went out for the first time yesterday to play some disk.   Frisbee is by far one of the highlights of my summer and I was super excited that the time has come for the season to begin anew!

 Whenever I get together with my friends for any reason I can't help but be reminded of how awesome they all are and how lucky I am to be where I am in life and had the opportunities I've had.  We are all excited about exercise and the outdoors and health... (minus the part of the evening where we scientifically tried to stuff twizzlers with pixi-stick sugar.  And we all look out for each other.  I'm proud to be part of such a wonderful group of people.  It constantly makes me happy to think about it!

Anyway, disk was awesome.  I'm sore, but the good kind, and I'm looking forward to start playing actual games.

Why birds are smarter than most people...

Sitting outside eating my sandwich on a park bench enjoying the sunshine and the (relatively) warmer weather I was joined by a flock of house sparrows. These little guys were NOT shy but hopped all over my feet screeching at each other over each dropped crumb. I went through an exercise of tapping my foot progressively harder just to see how loud a noise or fast a motion would scare them off. Nothing phased them... They didn't so much as blink.

Eventually, about 10 of them all lined up along the back of the bench next to me and each cocked their head to the side to stare me down, as if to say "that's really the best you've got?"

I dug into my pocket to get out my camera and document the long line of identically canted birds on a bench and I was just about to push the button when my flock of of feathered friends flew away in fright. Momentarily confused because my motion to grab the camera was well below their previously demonstrated threshold of annoyance I eventually looked around and noticed the red tailed hawk that lives in the neighborhood.

These little birds with tiny brains had learned that I posed no immediate threat, even in close quarters, because I had about a zero percent chance of being able to catch one of them. Yet they were able to recognize a much more serious threat at a great distance. Who among us could so deftly determine the level of danger in a situation and quickly extricate ourselves without a fuss?

Nature... never ceases to amaze me, even in the middle of the city.