Facing the Penguin

This was a toy that baby Allie received from her Uncle Stu and Aunt Joyce. However, it has since become Cameron's chief nemesis. For whatever reason in the mind of our 7-year old son, he starts off every morning locked in mortal combat with this inflatable penguin.

He always hurries through his breakfast and asks me if he has time to "fight the penguin" before it's time to go to school. So, he marches off to battle. Mr. Penguin gets thrown across the room, slammed, jumped on, and generally pulverized. But he keeps coming back for more (kind of the Weeble effect). It's a pure bare-knuckle brawl, Cameron has yet to get out his light sabers or other weapons of mass destruction.

Why exactly must he fight the penguin? I have no idea. It just started one day and it's been going on for a couple months. I don't think any winner has been declared yet, it's still a draw.

Back on Track with Table Tennis

Had a good night at the South Bend Table Tennis Club tonight. Won all 4 matches, gained a lot of points on my rating, and won my table so I can move up. Beat a guy which frustrated him so much that he broke his paddle. Actually, it's the second paddle he's broken on my account. You know, I have that real intimidating, trash talking persona that brings out the worst in people.

Just Saying Thanks

One of my student workers came by the office today with a petition that is going to be sent to our state and national representatives. Of course, my first thought was, "okay, what cause am I being asked to support?"

But nope, no cause. The petition read, "We're not asking for anything today, just wanted to say thank you for all the work you do." A petition to say thank you to our elected leaders. I think we could stand to see more of that. Come to think of it, that is a good cause to get behind.

Help from a Good Samaritan

This last weekend, Dorene and a friend were shopping when an announcement came over the PA system for the owner of a red Chrysler Town and Country to come to the front. Well, that was our mini-van, so Dorene went to see what it was all about. They went to the parking lot and a man was standing there who was very nervous about what had happened. Dorene could see that the side door was open and the man indicated that he thinks someone had gotten in and ransacked the van. Who knows what they may had stolen. This person was very helpful in reporting this and Dorene was grateful. However, as it turns out, all was well, no crime done.

You see, when Dorene went into the store, Allie's diaper bag fell into the way of the automatic sliding door and kept it from closing. That's why it was left open. As for the van being ransacked? Well, what the gentleman saw was just the normal state of our van with three kids. Yes, perhaps it does need to cleaned out.

I'm sure mom must be so proud.

The Colts Won???????

I went to bed early, figuring the Patriots were headed for a blowout. Should've known better, I guess, although the Colts just didn't look as good.

As for Bill Belichick, that was a choke for the ages. No matter how bad your defense is playing, it's always better to punt it away and make them go 70-80 yards for the go-ahead touchdown rather than gift wrap it for them and start on your own 29.

Not than I have even .0000000001% sympathy for Belichick, because I don't.

Not My Best Tournament

I traveled to Highland, Indiana today for the annual Highland South Shore Table Tennis Tournament. I've had a very good experience with tournaments. I either bring home a trophy or at least add some points to my rating. Well, neither happened yesterday.

The first two events I was in was for those with a rating under 1500 and under 1625. In the Under 1500, I beat one old guy and lost to another. The one I lost too I remember him beating me a couple years ago. He's actually quite good and puts some real tough spins on the ball. In the under 1625, I barely beat one girl and then lost to another after being up 2 games to 0 (Steve, this was Cindy Trykall). Then I lost my final match, which would have advanced me had I won, but losing 3 games to 0 easily prevented that from happening.

For my third event, I did something more for just the fun of it. There was an event called the "hardbat open." This is essentially old school ping pong. You use a paddle with no sponge, just the rubber with pips facing out. Basically the kind of paddle you play with in your garage or church basement, which produces a real "thunk" when you hit it. In addition, the games are best of 3 to 21 instead of best of 5 to 11.

I lost both of my matches in this event, although one I was up 20-18 in the final game and then choked. But it was interesting playing this type of game. For one, it is more tiring. No spin on the ball, so rallies are much longer. Seeing as a regulation game can be 40 points instead of 20, it also takes longer to play a game and there's time to recover from a slow start. You don't need nothing fancy. I got a $5.00 racket from Dick's Sporting Goods and did just fine. I'm hoping that the annual tournament in South Bend next spring has this, because it was fun.

So overall, bad tournament for my rating, but I still had fun. Better luck next time.

Breaking News

I get "CNN Breaking News" alerts sent via email. The one today was, "Fort Hood Suspect to be Charged with Murder."

Uh, yeah, as opposed to . . . . .?

Movie: "Michael Jackson This is It"

It's kinda interesting when you think about how the public perceives Michael Jackson now and how they did just before his death. He was scheduled to do a series of concerts in London, but when they were announced, it barely caused a ripple here. Even as they approached, you never heard much about them, or that MJ was in Los Angeles rehearsing. It seemed the concerts were a last ditch effort by him to either regain some of his stature as the King of Pop or to pay off the massive debts he had. Michael had become nothing more than a tabloid sensation, with ever increasingly bizarre behavior, and he hadn't performed in almost 10 years. After he died suddenly in June, interest did grow about these concerts he was preparing for, and then it was found out lots of rehearsal footage existed, which was made into the documentary I went and saw tonight.

Based on what I saw, I would have to say that Michael was poised to make a phenomenal comeback. He wasn't just planning a concert, but it was a massive stage production complete with 3D special effects, filmed sequences, and much more. He assembled an impressive line-up of dancers and musicians (my favorite being female guitarist Orianthi Panagaris, but the other lead guitarist, a male, ain't no slouch, either).

I guess what most people will wonder when they first go to see this is, how does he look? Well, he is very skinny, but other than that, he seems just fine. He's very courteous to his fellow performers and crew, makes his intentions clear without being a spoiled prima dona. Can he still dance? Oh yeah, he still has the moves, amazingly so. He never seems distant or detached, just his usual calm, reserved self that I remember from his 80's heyday.

The rehearsal footage assembled is pretty amazing. You see many songs performed close to how they would have been performed in the actual concert. The sound is very good, it doesn't have the feel of raw footage being shot by a handheld camera. The dancing is wonderful, and all the instrumentalists are great (and Michael isn't selfish, he allows them to be spotlighted). Also, they just seemed to be having a blast! This would have been one fun concert to be a part of. I don't think anyone was expecting this from Michael at age 50. He wasn't just going to phone in his performance, he was truly giving it his all, and it shows in the rehearsals.

You don't have to be a big MJ fan to enjoy this. I don't know how much fans were paying for the London concerts, but they were going to get their money's worth. Would Michael truly have ended his career after the London concerts? I don't know. After word got out how great they were, I think there would have been a huge demand for a worldwide tour. Based on what I saw in this documentary, I would loved to have seen the final, polished product (but what you see is still very impressive). This is only playing in theatres for two weeks, so go quickly, you won't be disappointed.

Clever Students

I teach a freshman-level college skills course at IU South Bend. This past week, we spent time in class preparing for an exam they were to take. I divided everyone into small groups to review the different test strategies and how to memorize the material. The test was over a chapter from the textbook. One of the strategies was taking random information and organizing in a way that would be easy to remember. For example, taking a list of 6 terms and making a sentence out of the first letter of each term.

For this example, the first letter of each term they were trying to memorize was E, L, D, H, C, W. Below is the sentence they came up with using these letters:

Every
Losing
Domer
Hates
Charlie
Weiss

I thought that was pretty good.

Dodgers v. Phillies

Watching the Phillies play the Dodgers in Los Angeles brings back memories of when I was at my peak of baseball fandom (my interest now only somewhat perks up during the playoffs). Back in the late 70's, the Phillies and Dodgers met several times in the National League playoffs. At the time, we lived in California and each year we made a trek down to Dodger Stadium. The first game we ever went to? Yep, Dodgers and Phillies during the regular season.

Dodger Stadium is not located in the heart of Los Angeles. You exit the freeway and go up this hill to get to it. You kinda wonder where this thing is at, then suddenly you come up over the hill and the sky blue stadium sits in the middle of a massive parking lot (which, by the way, is a zoo getting out of).

We usually went down 1 - 2 times a year. Ironically, I was never a Dodger fan. In fact, I rooted against them big time. I grew up a Cincinnati Reds fan, this during the era of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Pete Rose. So, we often went to see the Reds when they came to town. But, despite my interest in seeing them lose, the Dodgers were an enjoyable team to watch during the late 70's and early 80's. For one, this was when teams stayed together a long time and they had a remarkable team with players like Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, and many others, including Mike Sciosia, who's now coaching the cross-town rival Angels.

The first game I went to featured home runs by Greg Luzinski and Mike Schmidt of the Phillies. For the Dodgers, Rick Monday hit one and a grand slam was hit by none other than Dusty Baker, now a successful coach in the major leagues. Yeah, not quite sure why I remember who hit home runs for an early season game over 30 years ago, but maybe since it was my first trip to a major league game, that made it memorable. It was also memorable in that we were delayed in traffic several hours getting there (traffic accident on the mountain pass) and delayed again on our return trip (another traffic accident on the mountain pass). Not sure if she sang it at the first game I went to, but I remember multiple times Toni Tenille singing the national anthem (you know, as in Captain and . . .

Dodger Stadium is quite old now, and I think it's the oldest next to Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. I've been to several stadiums in my lifetime, but this one is still the best. Plus, it also has the best hot dogs of any ballpark . . .Dodger Dogs!

Returning to Bible Quizzing

Anna is on the quiz team at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in South Bend. Dorene and I used to be quiz coaches there and it's been fun returning but this time in the supportive parent role. We're not switching churches, just having Anna join their quiz team as a free agent. Kinda cool in that two of our former quizzers are now the coaches.

Anna had her first quiz last weekend in Peoria, Illinois. We weren't sure how she'd do because quizzing puts you in the spotlight and you also get told "wrong" several times. This didn't faze Anna a bit. She stepped it up and kinda surprised us. She finished in the top 10, which is quite good for her first quiz meet.

Even better is that quizzing is divided up into two divisions, upper and lower. As a 5th grader, Anna is on the lower division. However, there weren't enough teams quizzing in the lower division, so they combined everything so the lower teams (typically first-year teams) quizzed against the experienced teams with high school juniors and seniors. Anna held her own and outjumped many of the older, much more experienced quizzers. Can you say, YES!!

Cameron has played soccer, basketball, baseball and gymnastics. Anna has not really had anything to call her own. But she called Grandma Dennie after the quiz and told her, "I finally found my sport."

Not to brag on her or anything, but watch out, she's gonna be a good quizzer and comes from good quizzing pedigree. Both my brothers quizzed as did all my nephews and niece (whom I told practiced with laminated note cards in the shower). Myself, we didn't have a quiz team at our small church in Pixley, California, so I never got to quiz. But if we had, I'm sure a team that had me and Jeff Prine would have been unstoppable.

A Nobel Peace Prize for Obama?

Any Republican that questions this is going to be called a right-wing nut that can't accept the fact that Obama is President. But wait just a minute here. Does he really deserve this award NOW? I mean, what has he really done after just a year? I perfectly accept Obama as being President, he won handily, but this award kinda puzzles me.

When I think Nobel Peace Prize, I think of past winners like Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, Gorbachev, and Jimmy Carter. Usually the award is given as more of a lifetime achievement or for some truly monumental efforts at peace (like Walesa and Gorbachev). Oftentimes it goes to someone you've never heard of, but who has done something extraordinary.

I just don't see Obama deserving this just yet. His "war of necessity" in Afghanistan has gone quickly downhill in his year in office with last August being the deadliest month yet for our troops (we lost 48, but no one seemed to notice). Iraq has stabilized, mainly due to the troop surge he was against. Not saying Obama would never deserve the award . . .but not yet.

Is this making up for the sketch on SNL last weekend which mocked him as a do-nothing President?

Allison Diane Dennie @1

My baby girl turned one today!

Bring Home the Games, Obama

For some reason, Obama is getting some heat for lobbying on behalf of Chicago for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Not sure why this could be a bad thing. I think it would be great if Chicago were awarded the games. If ever I was going to have an opportunity to see an Olympics in person, this would be it. In fact, I'm not positive, but South Bend could possibly be a site because of our artificial white water course (which has been used before in Olympic trials). If anything, I think it would be cool to see the torch relay come nearby and to go see that.

A few years ago, Paris was the frontrunner for the 2012 games but was upset by London. A lot of the credit was given to Tony Blair for his lobbying on behalf of that city. So, if Obama can bring the games to us in 2016, more power to him.

However, I'm thinking that Rio de Janeiro is going to get the games. South America has never been awarded an Olympics and recent history has the U.S. doing pretty good securing the games with Lake Placid (1980); Los Angeles (1984); Atlanta (1996); and Salt Lake City (2002). The other cities in the running are Madrid and Tokyo. I would think Madrid would be a long shot since Barcelona just had them recently. Tokyo would probably be the long-shot upset if they won.

Note to Bill Clinton

Okay, so you still think there is a vast right wing conspiracy? Now, did it keep you from being elected twice to the Presidency? Did it keep the Democrats from retaking the House and Senate in 2006? Did it keep Obama from gaining the White House in 2008? If there's a conspiracy, it sure ain't doing very good at whoever they are conspiring against.

Wait a minute, are you still not coming to terms with the fact Obama beat your wife in the primaries last year and you don't have direct access again to the West Wing?

Birthday Weekend

The birthdays for myself and Dorene are just 3 days apart, so we usually combine celebrations. Not this year, however, since Dorene reached the milestone of 40.

I got her a room at the Farmstead Inn in Shipshewana for her and two of her friends last Friday, which was her actual birthday. They came back late on Saturday after doing the shopping thing in Shipshewana. She had told me a while ago that this is what she would like to do on her 40th when I was suggesting how it should be celebrated (she had actually forgotten she said this, so she was surprised when I told her what she's be doing). Meanwhile, I stayed at home with the kids and had a lot of fun just hanging out with them.

For my 45th birthday tonight, I came home and Dorene, the kids, and the dog were all gathered around the big rock in front of our house. Made for a nice picture but I didn't have my camera with me. But that was a nice thing to come home to. For dinner, I got some wonderful lasagna cooked by Dorene and Cameron (not exactly sure what he did, but he was very proud of it). Anna made my favorite cake, which is yellow with chocolate frosting. Allie just sat in her high chair and didn't contribute.

For my present, I got a Cadbury candy bar, which is one of my favorites. However, tucked in the wrapper were tickets to see the Cardinals v. Lions at Ford Field in December. Okay, this is a really good candy bar now. She said she tried to get tickets to the Cardinals v. Bears, but they were much more expensive. Go figure, it costs more to see the Lions than the Bears? The game is in late December, so by then Ford Field could be really empty unless the Lions make a serious run at it this year (after 0-16 last year, probably not). For the Cardinals, hopefully they can get it together, but either way I look forward to seeing Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald in action.

Next up: Allie turns one on October 8.

Catching up with Alex Cross

Recently finished "Cross Country," the latest novel by James Patterson to feature detective Alex Cross. One thing about a Patterson novel is if you say, "Wait just a minute, I need to finish this chapter," you are actually overestimating the time it'll take to finish. Patterson is known for his rather short chapters.

I've always very much enjoyed all of the Alex Cross series, but this one probably ranks near the bottom. It starts off well enough, with Cross on the trail of a typically ruthless serial killer. But then he sends Cross off to Africa, and everything kind of bogs down. Not much really happens, and I guess Patterson wanted to show his humanitarian side by describing the plight of the Nigerians. In addition, Cross seems to get beat up a lot, which is unusual for this character (note to Hollywood: Morgan Freeman was the wrong choice to portray this guy).

So, not too thrilled with this book. Will have to wait for the next one, which won't take long, because Patterson really cranks these out. He's also written a number of other books with other authors. I've read several of these. One I won't read is "The Quickie," if for no other reason so I don't get caught coming out of the library with a book called, "The Quickie."

The "New" Jay Leno

I watched the rebooted Jay Leno show last night. It actually was okay, only I'm not sure what exactly was new about it. It seemed to be pretty much the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." He had guests, some pre-recorded bits, pretty much what he did before. Came out shook hands with the crowd as always, joked with Kevin Eubanks, had some pre-recorded bits. Nothing all that new. Maybe a little bit less formal than the Tonight Show, but basically the same.

However, with Conan's ratings not doing so hot, maybe the same old show is what people want. I've never "got" Conan. His style of standing up there and making jokes of how unfunny he is was much better mastered by Letterman and (especially) Johnny Carson. Conan just doesn't do it for me and after his premiere, I've yet to watch it again.

Leno seemed to be enjoying himself and I think his show will probably do just fine (although the interview with Seinfeld was kinda boring). As for Kanye West, I thought he was basically a jerk for what he did in stealing Taylor Swift's moment so his teary confession last night didn't move me a bit. In fact, some of my student workers were talking about him yesterday, and were saying how it's getting harder to listen to his music because of all his antics.

Maybe Wilson is On to Something

Of course the most memorable part of Obama's speech last night was Rep. Joe Wilson shouting out, "You Lie!" in the midst of it. As expected, this was called "outrageous," "unheard of, " "outside the boundaries of civility," and the list goes on. Wilson apologized, saying his emotions got the better part of him.

But you know, maybe he's onto something here. You ever watch the Prime Minister questions that takes place in Britain? Occasionally I've come across this on C-SPAN. I believe it takes place on a weekly basis, where the House of Commons gets to directly ask questions of the Prime Minister, and anything goes. There is nothing scripted here, so the Prime Minister has to be ready for anything, and it's not always pleasant. Lots of grumbling goes on during the responses he gives. Yet, the country goes on. I've never heard of House of Commons representative coming to blows, so they must have mastered the art of how to appear uncivil but asking questions they feel need to be asked.

We often complain about so-called Presidential press conferences and how scripted they are. Or, how the President doesn't really have to answer to anyone and avoids any kind of direct question that isn't fed to him in advance (this goes for any President).

So, what if we adopted the British model? Have a time each week where the Congress could ask the President anything they want and have him respond on the spot? For Bush, this would have been a nightmare. For Obama, he'd need an IMAX size teleprompter to be ready for all the possible questions.

Going to the Circus

Last night the famous Carson & Barnes Circus came to the town of North Liberty, Indiana. Okay, THEY say it's famous and been around 70+ years, but I'd never heard of it. This was actually a fundraiser for the small Christian school that our kids attend and the big top (which was pretty good size) was set up in the grass by the North Liberty Church of Christ.

Growing up, I vaguely remember a 3rd grade field trip in Arizona to see a circus. But other than that, never went to one nor remember ever caring to go to one. Although, I guess I also did go to Circus Circus, but that was in Las Vegas and not exactly the same thing (the trapeze artists for the circus last night, we were told, came from Circus Circus).

The kids absolutely loved the circus, and even baby Allie sat there kind of awestruck. They had the usual assortment of circus acts. You had your jugglers, your acrobats, trapeze artists, and of course the animal acts culminating in the elephants doing their thing ,which Anna really thought was cool. There were also clowns, but I wasn't scared of them like Kramer (that's a "Seinfeld" reference).

Dorene and I were not into it all that much, but it wasn't for us, it was for the kids and they indeed had a blast. We sort of analyzed what the circus life must be like. One thing I noticed was that every single act began with the announcement, "From South America, please welcome . . . " In other words, these were probably all undocumented workers making minimum wage (if they were lucky). I believe just about every act was from South America, except for the dog act from the Ukraine.

The ringmaster was straight out of some old movie. A large fellow with a booming voice. During intermission, he came out with a yellow python that you could get your picture taken with. Anna likes snakes, but not that much. Also during intermission, they do all they could to milk more money out of the parents. They set up pony rides and elephant rides right there in the middle. How could you say no? Thus, Cameron got his elephant ride and spent his other $$ on a light saber, to go with his ever growing collection.