Today, Friday August 8 2008, my office (like many large corporate cultures) has casual Fridays for dress code (jeans, etc.). I thought this video from the series Retarded Policeman by Mediocre Films was a funny spoof on this silly corporate tradition that I would share with my friends.
I was reminded again this weekend that I have a kid growing into a teen. We took Olivia to her Jonas Brothers concert in Hershey, PA.
Funny thing was that Miley Cyrus appeared on the Today Show on Friday 7/25 just outside the window where I work. Had she not wanted to get up that early on her summer break, she would have wanted to go to that as well. I had forgotten what it was like to have teens in the house.
We took a boat ride from the Hudson River last Saturday over to the East River to view Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls”.
I was a little skeptical but it was actually a very interesting display for a hot summer day. I highly recommend it.
Just got back from a great family vacation to the Caribbean on Carnival Cruise Lines (more on that later). My favorite place was in our last port of call Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
Dunn’s River Falls is a famous waterfall near Ocho Rios, Jamaica and a major Caribbean tourist attraction. The falls empty into the Caribbean Sea. It is one of the very few rivers in the world that actually fall directly into the sea.
The waterfalls are staggered and span some 600 feet, several small lagoons exist interspersed between the vertical sections of the falls. Climbing up the waterfalls is a popular tourist activity and is often, but not exclusively performed with the help of tour guides from the park. The falls can be walked up with relative ease, often a human chain is used snaking up the falls behind the tour guide.
Great fun and highly recommended if you are ever there!
I used to watch NBC’s Meet the Press religiously on Sunday morning largely because of Tim Russert. It has now been over a week since his death and I watched Brian Williams do the show this morning. It really won’t quite be the same with Tim gone. While Williams is a great journalist and a superb anchor, he just doesn’t quite bring the same flare to the program that Tim did.
I think one of the things that Tim and I shared was our love of sports and politics. Part of the reason I love both (sports and politics) so much is that consequences and outcomes are “real”. Everybody has something at stake. Everybody has “skin in the game”. It’s real.
I think it is this quality that Tim so frequently brought out in his guests and his co-hosts over the years. I will truly miss him and his broadcasts.
Friday marked another school year in the books for my kids. Olivia finished up 7th grade at Liberty Middle School and will attend next year as an 8th grader. Zachary finished up as a 6th grader and will attend Liberty Middle school with his sister next year as a 7th grader.
We celebrated the passing of another year with a ritual we have done for several years now — a bonfire party for all the kids to burn their homework. It has become quite a tradition with a large bonfire a barbeque, fireworks and of course boxes and boxes of old homework.
It’s amazing that Nintendo Wii has done what they have with clearly a lesser technical platform (compared to XBOX and Playstation 3). They continue to innovate with superior interaction with the release of Mario Kart for Wii.
The kids and I bought this new game on Saturday and spent a good deal of the weekend playing it with them. We had a blast! 
It uses a steering wheel that embeds the Wii remote control into it. You hold the steering wheel in mid-air turning it to play the game. It is a very immersing experience to drive the carts or motorcycles in the game. Although the graphics are clearly not as good (since they are standard definition compared to the high definition capabilities of the XBOX or PS3) I still really enjoyed the feeling of competing and playing in that way with “real” people.
My wife, Phyllis, and I are both looking very foward to the Wii Fit title that comes out on May 21.
I am pleased to announce my new Blog on Wordpress 2.3.3. It was pretty easy to migrate my old posts and data over. I haven’t migrated my user base over yet but I am working with a plugin to see if that can be done. Please let me know if you have any comments on the new site.
Jason Kidd is my favorite player in the NBA and I was disappointed to read today that the Nets refuse to deal with him fairly. It is so sad to see a dispute like this force a great player to these lengths (sitting out with a fake Migraine headache reportedly).
Why can’t Rod Thorn (the owner of the NETS) just sit down and deal with Jason fairly? He’s a great player and all he wants to do is win. Just sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate with him to retain and hire a great supporting cast or trade him and forget about it and rebuild!
Why would Rod Thorn and the NETS organization seem to think that they can hold somebody like a slave. What makes employers like this think that this is a playable hand? One word — “lawyers”. Its bad advice but I think lawyers drive much of this kind of thinking.
My advice to Rod is to play the players hand and the fans hand (a so-called WIN WIN). Nobody is going to stay on the team without Jason. Nobody is going to watch a team without Jason. Period!
Here’s our photos and video clips from the 2007 Oxygen Halloween Party that Phyllis and I hosted on October 26, 2007. It was great fun!
Here’s a link to the whole photo set on Flickr.com and a link to the slide show format. Please send me links to any of your photo sets from the party and I will list them here as well.
This video is on Youtube.com and is part of our traditional Karaoke contest. This one is Chiara, Jeanhee, Phyllis and Kathie.
This one is Meredith, Lissy, Zach, Olivia and Samantha
