Napper Tandy Trivia

Took the bus down to the lower Mission area and did trivia with Katie and her friend Matt at Napper Tandy's. It's a small well-lit pub with a horse shoe bar and a thick Irish vein. No blaring music, no drunk screaming fraternity boys, enough light to see the beer your holding; it was great. Breanne had a friend coming up from Santa Barbara, who was running late, so Breanne couldn't make trivia.

There wasn't much of a turnout at Napper Tandy's, only about 10 teams, but there was some good competition. We actually began the night going 10/10 in the General Knowledge round, which is unheard of when I'm involved. So after a round we were in first, but we lost it after that. We did well in the Disney Songs round but labored in the corporate slogan round. I knew that the best a man can get is Gilette and that the number one ball in golf was the Titlest, but that's about it. A lot of the slogans belonged to car companies and none of were auto savvy.

Due to the small number of teams, the trivia official, a small middle-aged woman with a thick Irish accent, elected to cut the night short by eliminating the music round. This is always my strongest round, just as it is Katie's. We ended up finishing in 3rd, missing first by a measly 4 points, 4 points I'm confident we would have made up in the music round.

I actually had a fruitful night- had the old brain wheel rolling. I answered two questions correctly about old movies and nailed a few other tricky ones. I identified Demi Moore in a tricky photo and missed the date of the sinking of the Lusitania by one lousy year.

Since I'm in a hurry and I had a good trivial night, I'll end with just 3 major trivial failures of the night.

1. Allowed Katie to change my answer for the artist that sings "Love will keep us Together." She went with Chaka Khan instead of The Captain and Tennille.

2. Couldn't recall Helen of Troy's husband's name. It was Menelaus. I guessed Agamemnon.

3. Bothered to watch the 10th and 11th innings of the Sox game before catching the bus to Napper Tandy's. Waste of my fucking time. Awful performance, Sox.

Jumpin'

Got a CD of pictures in the mail from Manda today. Had a lot of shots of us trying to synchronize our jumps, which is mighty difficult with four people (Greg and Breanne also participated). I put up an album on facebook of some of my solo jumps.

I like to jump. I like the sensation of being off the ground. I've actually been reading up on how to improve your vertical leap. Believe it or not there is very little literature on the subject. When I was in high school I considered purchasing those special shoes that guaranteed to increase your vertical leap by 50% but they were too expensive. I'm cheap- I'm surprised I didn't try to make my own version of the shoes to save money.

This was the best website I could find on jumping so far, and it wasn't terribly impressive. It did have some recommendations for exercises to improve your jumping ability. It stated that most of your jump power comes from your quadriceps and your lower back. That makes sense.

I'm hoping that by the next Maine Olympics (2010?) Vertical Leap can be a recognized event.

If you type in "vertical leap" or "vertical jump" on youtube.com, the majority of the results are just junior high kids dunking on 6 ft hoops in their backyard. There are a few good ones though. Even without the jump, I love the background comotion in this video.

On a side not, I imagine jumping over a stick attached to some type of pool ladder is a great way for a father and son to bond.

Event Ballot

I'm almost ready to send out the event ballot for the 2009 Maine Summer Olympics. I've been emailing with my brother and we're just about finished with the form. The mandatory events have already been decided by the Maine Olympic Committee, which is composed of Ethan, Manda, myself, Jake and Greg. The mandatory events are 1 mile run, World Geography, Ping Pong and Tug-of-war.

I should do fine in World Geography as it's just a matter of putting in the study time. Last Olympics, the '07 Couples games, we had a similar event- World Capitals. I correctly identified every Capital except for Spain's, which I just forgot to fill in. Ping Pong I expect to win, unless there's a dark horse I'm not aware of. Tug-of-War is a team event, so that's a toss up. As for the mile, I've already begun training for this and I hope to finish in the top 5. There is no way I can realistically beat Greg or Jake but I'm hoping I can keep up with my sister. She's beat me two times in two Olympics.

The other event's that will be voted on are as follows:

Disc Golf

100 m dash

Eating Contest

Pictionary

Soccer

Pictionary

Beer Pong

Three-pointers

Baseball accuracy

Home run derby

Horseshoes

badminton

Shaking my Chair

I was eating at Los Hermanos on Friday night when I felt my first earthquake. I've apparently experienced several since moving to the west coast but this is the first time I've actually felt one. Half way through my second taco, I thought someone was behind me shaking my chair. I turned around but nobody was there and Breanne turned in her chair at the same time, so I asked her why she was turning around.
"I thought someone was shaking my chair," she said.
I suggested that it might be an earthquake but we didn't confirm it until the next day. The paper said it was a 4.0 on the Richter scale. I'm not entirely sure what that means but I guess no one got hurt. All our cabinets have magnets on the doors so they don't jiggle open when earthquakes hit.
The next day I ate at Los Hermanos again but there wasn't an earthquake. The tacos were still delicious though.

Noooooooooooooooo!

Hatchet!

Just read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. Hadn't read it since 3rd or 4th grade. It was almost as good as I remembered it being. The scene with the Moose still scares me. The boy in the story, Brian Robeson, lives next to a small lake in the Canadian wilderness for about 50 days. It's the Fall, when animals and berries are ubiquitous and plump. He picked a good time to crash that plane.

There aren't many people you meet that didn't read Hatchet when they were little. For those of you who don't know it, run to your local library and wait on the steps till they open. It's 10 pm for Christ sake.

Good books from Goodwill

I recently went to Goodwill with Manda and Greg and found 6 books at 99 cents apiece. Breb and I decided we would do a little book shopping of our own and so we looked online and found all the Goodwills in San Francisco and devoted the better part of a day to it. The first one was over on Geary and 9th. The next one required a bus ride over to Hyde and O'Farrell. The second GW was the most profitable- we picked up 10 books at that one. Then a quick lunch and we hit the main store at the corner of Mission and 11th. The last Goodwill within our bus range was over on Fillmore.

All told, we purchased 24 books for a little under 34 dollars. I think Breanne made out better than I did, but I was happy with the turn out. Here's the booty list:

Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Book of Sudoku 2

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Fat Lightning by Howard Owen

While I Was Gone by Sue Miller

I Remember Julia by Eric Carlson

Everyman by Philip Roth

Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Butler

3 Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger

Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee

The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton

Sports Illustrated: Baseball

The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson

All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein

Postcards by E. Annie Proulx

A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy

Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

The Chess Garden by Brooks Hansen

So I found some Tolkien I didn't know existed. I found some good baseball books. I found a Proulx book and some good fantasy. And Breanne found lots of other ones I'll try to get to. It was a good haul.

New Jacket

I bought a new jacket on Monday. When I put it on, Manda and I both, independently, thought that it looked like Marty Mcfly's jacket from Back to the Future 2. The sleeves aren't gray and it doesn't have a cord to pull that automatically dries it but it does have several zippers and pockets. It was only 20 bucks and it fits like a glove. An older woman in the store remarked that it looked "very good" on me. I'm almost certain she didn't work there.

Legion of Honor

Went to the Legion of Honor art museum with Breb today. It was the first Wednesday of the month so admission was free.

The first few rooms had a lot of similar paintings; Mary and her baby, Jesus, or John the Baptist leaning on a stick. I prefer landscapes to people. Some boring tables covered with grapes and fiddles. Eventually we made it to a room filled with cabinets and desks and short tables. These interested me. They were all covered with intricate carvings and tiny plates of gold and marble and bronze. There were only a few pieces of furniture that were practical though. You wouldn't want to eat cereal over most of them.

There was one room entirely devoted to Rodin. My favorite piece of art of the Legion is a work of his. It's a statue he shaped of Claude Lorrain, a Baroque artist famous for his landscapes. Rodin's Lorrain stands, with a pallet in one hand and the other holding an invisible paintbrush, with his head turned to the side and his mouth frozen in a stunned circle. The little plaque said Rodin wanted Lorrain to appear taken by a sudden and beautiful sunrise. It was easy to imagine.

Another room held two globes under glass. They were old, you could tell from the written language on land and sea, and the terrible proportions of the continents. One of them didn't even include the America's, only a long curving sea full of giant lobsters and sea bears. I wish I could have looked more closely at the globes.

Outside was the most famous piece there, Rodin's Thinker. Like David, this is one of those larger than life statues that make you cringe at your own inability to create art. It was up on a tall pedestal and the sun was extremely bright, so it made it hard to stare and think along with the giant green pensive man. So I looked closely at his rough feet. Feet and hands are usually the most detailed parts of sculptures anyway.

We were short on time but we'll be going back next month, on the first Wednesday, because we're cheap.

Raisins

Trying to get back in to raisins. It hasn't been easy. They're not very good and they've got a lot of sugar in them. My dad made me bag lunches all the way up to my senior year in high school. He was always packing raisins. He also turned me off to steak sandwiches and cheese sticks, but hell, I've turned that around. Raisins, we can do this.