Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Combo Names

Dear Hank;
September 20, 2006
Re: Combo Names

I’m sure there’s a term for what I’m about to describe but I don’t know what it is and I haven’t yet come up with a clever name myself. Maybe we’ll have to have a contest to “Name the Phenomena” and only you my loyal fans and subscribers will be allowed to participate – but I digress.
I first notice this when I was talking to my financial planner at A. G. Edwards. He told me to send him mail at agedwards. I couldn’t help noticing that if read aged wards. I found this hysterically funny, well lightly amusing. Did he work at a place where old orphans hung out? Get it? Yeah, you do. The internet has spawned the idea of putting multiple words together, ostensibly to form an address but sometimes the combined words can form another grouping like the A. G. Edwards – Aged Wards example.
I ran into another one today Baltimoresun. Is that Baltimore Sun or Baltimores Un?
There are also other questions that arise when combining words; a problem programmers have been dealing with in function calls for years.
If one word ends in the letter that the next word starts with do you drop one of the letters, put the two together, capitalize the second one? For Example:

rickkinnaird
rickinnaird
rickKinnaird

And there is the whole capitalization question, should it be:

Rickkinnaird
RickKinnaird

rickinnaird
Rickinnaird
ricKinnaird
RicKinnaird?

Or would underbars, dashes or dots help, such as:

Rick_Kinnaird
Rick-Kinnaird
Rick.Kinnaird

Generally, the underbars, dashes and dots have been abandoned on the internet. The dots have significance to the interpretation of the address, so that’s understandable. The underbar and the dash are probably too hard to explain to people, It’s R I C K followed by an underbar not a dash; that’s the shift dash character un-huh. Then it’s K ….

Let’s not even try and discuss front slash (/) and back slash (\).

Then there’s the ultra-clever What if one word ends in several letters that match the next word? situation. Such as:

Centerminal, (Center Terminal)

What about a movie title like
Stand and Deliver?
Wow, the possibilities:
Standeliver,
StanDeliver,
Standanddeliver,
Stand&Deliver,
The mind reels … (the mind reals!!! Get it?? Ha ha ha <- something else the internet has given us.)









Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Redskin Update after Game 2 vs Cowboys

Dear Hank;
September 19, 2006
Re: Redskin Update - following the 2nd game of the season with the Cowboys

Living in or near Washington DC you have to discuss one thing and one thing only. It’s not politics. It’s the Redskins.
Here are the buzz phrases and questions you need for this year:
The Redskins have a 700 page play book. It takes a while to learn the new system. When will they learn it? Do they have the right personnel?
Will Clinton Portis be well and if not, will they, the Redskins, be able to mount an effective running game?
What about the passing game? Why aren’t we using Santanna Moss more? He was our big playmaker last year.
Why doesn’t Mark Brunnell throw the ball farther down field? He keeps throwing these little dinky screen and short passes.

Here are the standard answers to most of questions about the Redskins:
The Redskins are usually a slow starting team. It doesn’t matter what you do in the beginning of the season as much as it matters what you do at the end.
Staying healthy and having depth is the key.
Joe Gibbs is a great coach and he’s proven it in two different sports. There’s no reason to believe that he won’t do it again. Drink the Gibbs’ koolaid - believe. Be patient, it will work out. They’ll be in contention by the end of the season.
They’ve got some adjustments to make and they need to work the kinks out; once they do they’ll surprise a lot of people.

Notice that the “Standard Answers” as I call them don’t answer any of the questions raised. Is this on purpose? No, the truth hurts and the fact is that for what ever reason the Redskins fail to execute. They may have a 700 page book or a 7 page book but they don’t seem to be able to do it very well – period.

Why doesn’t Mark Brunnell throw the ball farther down field? He doesn’t have time. He’s running for his life. After a while I’m sure he gets a little gun shy and runs too quickly and dumps the ball.

Why aren’t they using Santanna Moss? It’s a combination of Brunnell doesn’t have enough time to throw the ball and the stupid 700 page playbook. They haven’t gotten to the part that would use Moss.

What about the running game? With Portis – awesome, without it will be okay; if they execute and that brings me to the last question.

What about the 700 page playbook and learning the system etc? If I were Gibbs I’d reduce the number of plays and make sure everyone them really well. I’d work on execution. I remember the first Super Bowl. I think the Packers had five plays. It seemed that Vince Lombardi would call the same play twice in a row. In fact I think they probably even told Kansas City what they were going to run; just to see if they could stop them.

Trick plays – I love them. The trickiest play of the Redskin Cowboy contest has to be when a Redskin player went in motion from right to left and the Cowboy linebacker #94 went in motion with him. The ball was snapped and the linebacker rather than fading back with the receiver went straight in on good old Mark and sacked him unobstructed.

Will the Redskins be in contention? Maybe, but probably not.
Will the win the Super Bowl? No.
Anything else? No?
Fortunately, I know everything when it comes to football.

However, let me now concentrate on more important issues relating to football and the Redskins. Did the Redskin Cheerleaders go to Dallas? Did they reveal more of their playbook? And who was the Redskin Cheerleader of the game?
This of course suggests that there will be a Cheerleader for the season and we should begin speculation on that for sure.
Also, if the cheerleaders went were they denied access to the field? I didn’t see them on TV so I don’t know if they were there on the field or if they were locked out or if they stayed at home. If they were locked out who did that? Was it the management of the Cowboys or was it some dirty little plot by the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders? If it was the Dallas Cheerleaders that locked them out then I’d have to wonder if there was some mean cat fight in the dressing rooms of the cheerleaders either before or after the game?
Now there’s something to get excited about. There’s something I can really get behind. Yeah, baby.

I gotta go.
Later,

Friday, September 15, 2006

Some people call me cynical

Some people call me cynical and I guess I am, maybe that comes with age. Maybe it comes with being burned by folks. It makes one more cautious and less willing to believe that people are going to do what they say. Nixon used to say that he said things to watch the effect it would have, “like billiard balls bouncing off one another”, was the way he characterized it, except he used the word carom. It seems more people these days are like Nixon, saying whatever they need to get by, or not saying anything at all, guilt by omission.
A friend of my father’s died recently and in one of his memorial write ups they quoted him as saying that he wanted to improve mankind’s lot through the use of optics, this man’s specialty. The fellow who sent it said where are the heroes today like this man? He raises a good question. We’re not talking about super heroes who battle gigantic villains with super powers but seemingly ordinary people who see a greater vision for themselves, who see a calling beyond their own self aggrandizement. Have they disappeared? Is the climate no longer right for them? What happened?

Friday, September 08, 2006

Planets and Tomatoes

Planets and Tomatoes
Or
The Tomato Wars Continue Unabated

Dear Hank
September 8, 2006

It hard to believe summer is almost gone. There’s the smell of fall in the air and I haven’t even gotten my second swim of the season in yet. I like to get in at least two swims a year because one swim costs over 500 dollars and two drops it to $250, which I find much more reasonable.
This inevitable leads me to the subject of my tomatoes which by the current crop count divided by the amount I paid for all the plants probably drops the cost per tomato to around 25 cents which is pretty good; as long as you don’t count in indirect costs such as labor and land and taxes on the land, etc. This would inevitably show you that growing tomatoes in the shade of giant trees on land that is essentially clay is not a money making proposition.
My daughter pointed out to me that I don’t really have a garden what I have is a plant hospice. She said that this is a place plants come to die. That’s not really true. I don’t think they come here with the intention of dying. It just works out that way. I’m a naturalist when it comes to gardening. I believe that if things are meant to live they will. I try to help by remembering to water them and by taking them out of the garden packs and putting them in the ground but other than that I let nature take its course. I did talk to the plants several years ago but that didn’t seem to help much. It was my daughter who suggested that saying, “Grow! Goddammit!” was maybe not what they plant talking advocates had in mind. I tried to explain to my daughter that there are two schools of management: Theory X and Theory Y. Theory Y is the nice, kind, understanding school of thought and Theory X is the fear and intimidation school. Theory X generally gets you quick immediate results, theory Y more long term but less assured results. I’m generally a Y guy in real life but with plants I’m more the X type. It allows my natural passive aggressive dark side to come out and the plants respond accordingly by dying.
It’s not confined to natural living plants, artificial ones drop flowers and leaves too. I have a certain touch.
Like those stupid seeds from Monticello. Oh yeah, they show me these massive bushes on the ground of our third president’s estate with these wonderful names and some garden club lady in a “nice” flowing skirt and straw hat tells me more about them and when I’m leaving I go by the tent with all this overpriced garden stuff and I’m feeling like I do at Home Depot saying to myself Yeah, I can do this. So I buy a bunch of packets. A month later I plant half of each packet and they sprout! I’m overjoyed. A few grow to the point where I can recognize a two to two and a half inch leaf. Then they lie over and dye. Fuckers. I plant again in a different spot and I even remember to water them. They peak up through the soil shortly thereafter and that’s where they’ve been ever since. Little tiny green leaves, with stalk and a leaf on each side no bigger than a dime, double f—kers. I’d like to kidnap one of those garden ladies and tell her to lead a tour around these palatial grounds!
But I digress, I’m sorry; I’m so easily lead astray by my own thoughts. What I came to tell you about is the continuing tomato wars and how I’ve been coping with the downgrading of Pluto as a planet and the strange similarity to tomatoes, which without my contribution to the horticultural universe might never have been realized. Not only that but to make my blog even more appealing to folks I’m adding pictures. In this way my blog will be as exciting as an old National Geographic (sorry, no saggy bosom shots - yet.)

(image placeholder)

Take a look at this photo. Do you see the three tomatoes? (Okay so you can't see them beause the blog won't support pictures. You'll have to got to my website www.rickkinnaird.com where you won't see them either til I get around to post it.) Two of them are mine. The big huge ugly digusting looking one, the one that looks like Jupiter, is not from my garden, Farmer Alan grew it. Mine are the other two (and because you can't see the picture yet, I'll describe them: one looks like a cocktail tomato, the other looks like a minature cocktail tomato.) I like to think of the smaller of the two as being like Venus, the bright star of the evening, the goddess of love. I could imagine it as Pluto or Mercury too. The middle tomato reminds me of Earth. The only place we know for sure holds intelligent beings. Most of my tomatoes are either in the Venus or Earth size, none in the Jupiter; although, I have had one Italian tomato that maybe considered in the Neptune/Saturn category. My tomatoes have been in the best position to garnish salad plates and add festive touches to summer picnics. I mean can you imagine that ugly monstrosity being put in the center of a bed of lettuce as a festive touch? That would be like showing a giant meteor at the moment before impact; not cool, not beautiful, not like my wonderfully beautiful perfectly formed tomatoes.
So once again I have to conclude that in the ever escalating tomato wars my legumes are better than your legumes. Maybe, I should make that a cheer or a fight song.
My legumes are better than your legumes,
My legumes are better than your legumes,
Rah, rah, rah,
Fight, fight, fight,
Yeahhhhhhhh!
I looked up legume and realized it’s a bean, not a tomato. Tomatoes are really lycopersicon esculentum and yes it’s a fruit – everybody know that! Duh!
But somehow
My lycopersicons are better than your lycopersicons,
Seems a bit stiff, even driveling snotty, and it doesn’t really scan the way legume does. Maybe next year I’ll have to grow beans.
That’s all for now.
Keep in touch.



Friday, September 01, 2006

Redskins preseason

Redskins – pre-season and remembering why I don’t go to games anymore

Dear Hank,

A few years ago I was on my way to Maine when we hopped off the turnpike at exit 2, got something to eat and decided to go thirty miles up route 1 to get back on 95 north. There’s a reason you don’t do this. You have to go through the town of Ogunquit, which is cute and pretty and quaint. It is also loaded with tourists and there’s a cross roads at an odd angle in the center of town with no light. The road is packed bumper to bumper for most of the thirty miles and it moves at an every other car speed the entire way. It can take two or three hours to go that distance.
But you forget every ten years or so and you do it, or start to do it, and then you remember. It’s like getting a “snap out of it slap” in the face.
Going to a Redskins game at Fedex Field is like that slap in the face. I went the first year the stadium opened. I was astounded by the bad traffic patterns, the long torturous ramps to walk to your seat, the huge open seating with nowhere to get out of a bad weather situation, the lack of any good food concessions, and the meager selection once you got to the front of the line.
We went to the last pre-season game for this season, against the Baltimore Ravens. We got free tickets, so why not? I’ll tell you why not. You forget that it will take one and a half to two hours to get there because of traffic. You forget that they’ll hustle you into a “cash lot” where you pay $30 to park, take a bus to the stadium and arrive after kick off.
We had seats in the upper deck, row 29. Do you know where row 29 is? It’s the top most row. You can’t get any higher. You better be in shape if you are going to take these seats. I saw people stopping two and three times to catch their breathe before proceeding.
We were hungry so I bought two “Philly cheese steak” sandwiches and a bottle of water, $21. They frisk you at the entrance you can’t bring in any bottles so you have to pay the $5 for a medium sized bottle of water. So our free tickets have cost us $51.
It had been in the 100’s earlier in the week and temperatures had come down a bit. Rain was threatening. We brought our ponchos; thank goodness we did because on the top row the wind, even mild came over the top edge of the far side of the stadium and hit us. We were freezing.
We huddled in our seats, backs to the fence, trying not to look down the cavernous maul before us and ate one of the cheese steaks. A speaker box was thirty feet away and so loud that it hurt our ear drums. It was on the end of a structure that held the lights for the game, which was swarming with bugs. Big moths were flying in the lights. The wind would come across the stadium; create a down draft and a moth would get sucked down. The moths would smack into your body every so often. You had to be careful not to open your mouth too soon before putting your sandwich into it for fear of getting a dive bombing moth instead.
Oh the game, that’s certainly an after thought. We naively thought leaving between one and a half and two hours would be enough time. It wasn’t. We missed the starting players for both teams. So we watched a bunch of no names. I haven’t been to a game in several years and it does look a lot different than on TV. I always forget how bad they are. It looked like two high school teams. Late in the game a woman near us yelled, “Throw the ball!” The quarterback obliged. The woman then yelled, “Throw it to our team.” There was lots of talk on the sports programs earlier that day that the coaches “didn’t want to reveal too much in their play book.” I think they failed miserably or succeeded wonderfully depending on your outlook. The players revealed that they can’t catch, run, kick, block or tackle; so who cares about the play? What does it matter what play you have called if, when the quarterback gets the ball and is dropping back a defensive player is there with his hands on the ball and another defensive player is tackling the quarterback from behind?
I thought that when the ball was in the air anyone could catch it, but I was wrong; no one could catch it: through the hands, off the numbers, low ball – don’t dive. Hey, it’s pre-season; the coaches didn’t reveal anything in their play book and the players, I hope, didn’t reveal anything in their abilities.
My stomach was upset from eating that cheese steak (to make it even more insulting, near the refreshment stand was an ad for Subway Sandwiches with the tag line “Eat Fresh”). I decided to go down and find some soft serve ice cream. Shelby wanted some popcorn. There was none of either to be found. I finally saw a guy walking by me eating an ice cream sandwich. I walked around the upper deck for three or four sections and gave up.
The wind had gotten so bad that we moved down twelve rows. It wasn’t much better. The wind could now hit the seats and be funneled at you sideways so you could get hit by empty paper cups and peanut husks. At least you didn’t have the backdraft and the bugs were slightly less annoying.
Many people left the game at the end of the third quarter. After the Redskins kicker missed his second field goal from thirty yards most of the rest of the crowd left. By the end of the game I’d estimate that the stadium was 10% full. I’ve got to give it to the camera crews. They managed to find pockets of people to show on the big screen that made it look like it packed. Let me tell you how empty it was. From where we sat to where the exit was for our section, which was seventeen rows down, the only person sitting in the area directly in front of us was the stadium staff person. The section was empty for those rows except for a few groups on the far side of it.
I looked around the upper deck and it was about the same in every section and the lower sections weren’t much better.
When the kicker missed that second field goal; even the loyal Redskin fans – the ones with the jerseys and the hats and the beads and the noses – the ones who stand up to signal first down; even those people were looking away and snickering; not laughing but snickering.
Most people had left by the time the Redskins mounted their touchdown drive, a drive that was kept alive by a questionable penalty against the defense. I wonder if the coaches revealed part of their playbook in that drive Okay, guys go down the field and on third and whatever hope that we get a penalty in our favor.  
Earlier in the game, when I was hiking up in the stands I passed a rather mild mannered fellow sitting in his seat. I heard cheering and turned to watch what I would consider the only legitimate run of the game. I hear this fellow yelling, “Run you dick.”
When the runner stopped to try and let the defensive player over run the play so he could cut back he got knocked out of bounds. The guy behind me was yelling, “Don’t run out of bounds,” then screaming in disgust, “you pussy.”
Guess what the highlight of the game was? Well there was only one positive highlight.
There were lots of other highlights unrelated to the game. There were various commercial promotions for seat upgrades, free meals, fan of the game, best row of the game, none of which seemed to be rooted in any real decision process. There were “the first ladies of football” the Redskins Cheerleaders (at least they didn’t call them ‘The Redskinettes’.) Every time they announced them and their appellation I thought Shelby was going to release the contents of her Philly cheese steak onto the many orange seats below us. The first ladies of football were attired in uniforms that looked exactly like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, little white shorts and a cross your heart tie behind your neck top in maroon and gold of course (not blue and white like Dallas – totally different look.)
All the cheerleaders had hair that came down to between their shoulder blades. But somehow a “Cheerleader of the Game” was picked and it was cheerleader Britney. She goes to George Mason. She’s pre-med. It’s her second year as a cheerleader and she wants to keep cheering for “the best team in football.” All I could think is, “When is she switching?” I also wondered how they picked her and did the other ladies scratch her eyes out in the locker room later? I also have heard stories of how hard these cheerleaders practice and work out. Obviously, they weren’t revealing too much of their playbook either. Their cheering consisted of swishing their pompoms in front of their torsos and changing formation from two lines to a triangle. I wonder how long they worked on those formations? About as long as the redskins offensive line worked on blocking assignments?
Ah me, the thrill of being there, it’s too much. But it was good to go back and be reminded why I don’t go. Then there was leaving. We decided to wait to the end of the game figuring no one would be left and we were right. We walked down the ramp, one quarter of the way around the field to the bus, which after loading up sat for a long time, got to our car, our lot was almost empty, and drove home, no traffic. How long does that take? How long does it take to leave Redskins Field, catch the bus and go home to Bethesda with no traffic? One and a half hours. Can you imagine how long it would take if everyone stayed till the end of the game: three maybe four hours? We’re talking about 70,000 people. Nascar has 160,000 to a race. I’ll bet they do a better job. Why not put the stadium 100 miles away with good access? You’d get home quicker and you wouldn’t burn as much gas.
I remember the first time I went to “Jack Kent Cooke Stadium” I was amazed at the traffic flows around the stadium. How could you design a stadium where you got the opportunity to run over the same person three times? They did it. Of course things our different now because so much of the parking lot is taken over with the bus service to ferry people to outlying locations in the surrounding office parks. Of course, they have to charge $30. You’ve got to pay for the cops, the people with flash lights, the people to put out the traffic cones and take them up, the trash pick up people, the buses, the drivers. There’s a lot to do when you design a stadium like this. You could put the stadium on a metro line; oh wait, we had that. It also afforded protection from the rain and blocked the wind. You could see the game too. No wonder we moved.
I can’t wait for September 11th (that, as everyone knows, is the beginning of the Redskins regular season. Nothing else happens on that date. Go Dan! Go Skins! Maybe Dan will have snagged Tom Cruise by then and he can come to the game. Wow, the excitement never ends.)