13 Days Until Pitchers and Catchers Report

Okay, I know its early, but i'm taking a break from school work and I had baseball on the mind.

Based on the current Royals 40 man roster, this is who I would want on the opening day 25 man roster.

Lineup:

1. Scott Podsednik - LF
2. David DeJesus - RF
3. Billy Butler - 1B
4. Jose Guillen - DH
5. Rick Ankiel - CF
6. Brayan Pena - C
7. Alex Gordan - 3B
8. Mike Aviles - 2B
9. Yuniesky Betancourt - SS

Bench:

1. Brian Anderson - OF
2. Willie Bloomquist - INF/OF
3. Josh Feilds - 3B/OF
4. Chris Getz - INF
5. Jason Kendell - C

Pitching Rotation:

1. Zack Greinke
2. Gil Meche
3. Luke Hochevar
4. Brian Bannister
5. Robinson Tejeda

Relief:

1. Joakim Soria - CL
2. Roman Colon - R
3. Juan Cruz - R
4. Kyle Davies - R
5. Kyle Farnsworth - R
6. Dusty Hughes - L

Alberto Callaspo will be traded for a relief pitcher.

Okay, back to school work.

Suicide Hill

We went sledding down suicide hill last year and it was fun, but I think this year we actually got to experience it in its fullest. By that I mean a full understanding as to why its called suicide hill. It is dangerous. Fun yes! But very dangerous. The bottom of the hill is full of obstacles: trees, telephone polls, picnic tables, people, and lets not forget about... the street.

Here are just a couple of shots of some sleds that didn't quite cut the mustard. I decided not to photograph some of the blood-colored snow stains that we saw.

There has been snow on the ground since Christmas Eve. We went Christmas Day but we only stayed about 20 minutes because we were not prepared for how cold it actually was. So we bundled up and went 2 days later. It was overly crowded so we didn't get to go down as much as we would have liked, but we still had fun.

We went again today, 8 days after the first snow, allowing the hill to get fully packed down and slick enough to reach the fastest speeds yet.

Here is Collin and I's first run of the day.

Here is one of Collin going down by himself and nearly, NEARLY sliding right into the street. You'll notice at the end, he was unfazed by this. Please, no comments about me being a bad father and letting this happen.

This last video does nothing but prove that Collin and I had the fastest sled there. If you pay close attention (I know, it's hard because of all the shaking) you can see us passing several people AND see the looks on their faces.

Fun dangerous times!

Just a Couple of Projects

These are a couple of my past design color projects that I plan on including in my portfolio review this week.

color transparency

color vibration

Thug Life Follow Up

Collin got off the bus on time. If I remember correctly it was raining outside and he did not have an umbrella, so I ran outside, grabbed him, put him over my shoulder and ran him inside. Then the normal after-school routine began.

He took off his shoes off at the door and placed his jacket and backpack in his room. He then ate a snack at the dinner table while he did his homework. Once his sentences were done, we started talking about his day. I decided to give him the opportunity to tell me what happened.

He didn't.

According to him gym was great! They played dodgeball. Yay!

Well, after a bit him doing a little dodging himself I flat out told him that I knew. I didn't tell him what I knew. I just let him know that I knew that something happened at school and that I was ready for him to tell me about it. I assured him that he wasn't in trouble, that he had already been disciplined at school. I just wanted to hear it from him.

Still nothing. Nothing bad happened at school, and gym was still great.

Then I informed him that the behavior specialist had called mommy at work and told her everything.

His response was, "Oh? What did she say?"

Priceless.

After a couple more times of me stressing that he was not in trouble, that whatever happened happened and its over with and all I wanted was for him to tell me the truth, he broke.

His story was that he was dancing in the line while waiting to get back into the dodgeball game. His arm had "grazed" against the kid next to him, and that caused the kid to push Collin down. Collin never admitted to punching the kid in the eye. He says that he just got back up, started dancing again, and that his hand "grazed" the kid right in the face.

Sounded unlikely, but I didn't press it anymore. I was just happy that Collin finally fessed up about the whole thing. And I could tell that Collin did not want to talk about it anymore.

Thug Life

The time is currently 1:38 on Thursday, October 29th.

Collin will be home in from school in 2 hours and 12 minutes.

I am going to have a little talk with him. Apparently he has gotten himself into a little trouble today, well, thats what the behavior special said when she called Lisa this afternoon.

While standing in line for an activity during gym class, our little first grader decided to pass the time and do a little dancing. His arm then hit the kid standing next to him in the chest. That kid, not waiting for an "excuse me" or an "I'm sorry", which I am pretty positive Collin would have done, took offense and pushed Collin to the floor. Collin then reacted to the offense with defense, and punched the kid in the eye.

I should not find this funny.

But I do.

According to the behavior specialist, who we have dealt with only once before, both boys have talked it out and everything is okay. Neither of them had to leave school for the day, but instead have to spend the rest of the day in the "buddy" room. She thinks the boys are handling the situation very well. Which is fantastic.

I really don't know why I find this funny. I think its just trying to picture my boy actually taking a swing at another kid. Again, not funny, but I can't stop laughing about it. A part of me is kinda happy that he defended himself. Makes me think that any kid that watched it will think twice about pushing Collin to the floor. Way to stand up for yourself, Collin.

I'm real curious as to what he has to say about the whole thing.

Heeeeeeeey Yoooooou Guuuuuuuuuys!

For our family movie night last night we watched The Goonies. I bought it on dvd at the mall for like $3. Both Lisa and I thought Collin would enjoy it. As it was starting, we both realized that we were only one year older than Collin when that movie came out. He loved it.

The dvd came with only a few cool special features, including deleted scenes. One of the deleted scenes answered an almost lifelong question of mine. At the end of the movie when the Goonies are answering a reporter's questions, they mention escaping an octopus. Even as a kid this confused me because, well, they DIDN'T escape an octopus.

Here is the deleted scene.

Now it all makes sense. Except that if they cut this from the movie, shouldn't they have cut the line about them escaping it?

What if they would have kept this scene in? I mean, the movie is all fantasy anyway. But a breakdancing octopus? Come on Spielberg.

School Flies When You Are Having Fun

The Fall semester started in August. It is mid-October and we are already registering to pre-enroll for the Spring semester at the end of this month. Crazy. This week has played tricks on my mind. All of this preparation for the Spring (speaking with teachers, planning out a schedule, and registering) makes one think that this semester is close to being over, when in all actuality, it is only the midway point. Like I said, Crazy.

Another reason why I believe registering for pre-enrollment has played with my mind, is that I feel like I have only been pumping out projects two out of my four classes. Design Color and Typography (Type has become my favorite class so far) has been giving me the most work that lead to results. Results being finished projects accompanied by grades. Drawing and Photography have taken slower approaches. We just turned in our first project in Drawing last week, and the Photography teacher simply wants us to get comfortable with the whole photo development process before anything is due. Which is all good, I guess. I just hope these two classes aren't calms before the storms leading up to portfolio review.

And now for another one of my current Typography projects.

We had to write a research paper recently on a graphic designer. I picked Saul Bass even though I didn't know who he was. To be honest, the name stood out because of a Seinfeld episode. Kramer thought he saw Salman Rushdie at the gym and he was going by the name Saul Bass. Anywho, among a lot of design work, Saul Bass is most known for designing title sequences and posters in the 50's and 60's. Our next project, after the research paper, was to create a poster for the Nelson, as if it were holding an exhibit on your subject. The poster itself it to be strongly influenced on the subject, so in my case, Saul Bass.

Here are a few of his most famous posters.

Here are a couple of rough drafts that I have put together.

I like the second one a whole lot better than the first. Only because the second feels less like I just copied one of his old posters. After showing the teacher my thumbnail sketches for these, I was very surprised when she said that, after all of the years that they have assigned this Nelson project, that nobody had used the shuttlecock images in their posters. I found that extremely hard to believe.