Sigh

Winston is someone who, before meeting his girlfriend, was someone I could count on being on-line every night to IM. He's still doing a good job of IMing me, though he's around less frequently now. Well, recently my IM list has been all away for a while. Tonight I see Winston on line... and the follow conversation occurs (IM names have been changed to protect privacy):

WildTing55: Yay, you're back, someone to IM!

Response:

[Bing bong]

madphoenix33: madphoenix33 has signed off

Fun with anagrams

So a while back, Winston introduced me to a site that finds anagrams (where you take the letters of a word or phrase and rearrange them to make new words, like in Da Vinci Code). Today I went back to that site and had some fun with my name... For "Dale Ting" I came up with:

1. Legit DNA

Nice to see I have the gene pool on my side

2. Get Linda

This is funny because Linda is my sister!


And the best one, drum roll please...

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

3. Laid gent

;)

Softball

Today was a bit of a disappointing softball day... It started pretty good, I took a batting lesson from someone at the batting cage I go to. The guy was pretty good, had me work on 1. Exploding the hips, 2. Keeping my head down when hitting the ball. Turns out the guy bought the business about a year ago... Count me jealous! I had my eye on batting cages as a fun business to get into. Maybe I can partner up with him. :)

So at the game tonight, the first time up all the stuf I learned worked to perfection as I lined a single up the middle. After that it was a soft liner to 2B, a weak grounder to 1B... and then up with the bases loaded, 2 out, down by 1, bottom of 7th... Perfect time for a... grounder to 2B. Guess I have more work to do. But I think I gotta let these blisters heal before I hit the cages again.

P.S. It was quite a scene seeing 3 generations of Templins in the stands.

Quotable

"It's like recognizing pornography, you'll know it when you see it."

-David Stern, NBA commissioner, when asked how the NBA determines what type of fouls warrant a suspension.

Book report - Jump start you brain, by ex-P&Ger who quit

In the style of Karen, I will do a little book report too. The book I have is called Jump Start Your Brain, and it's written by Doug Hall, a former brand manager at P&G who didn't really fit because he was too creative. I love the premise because I often make fun of the rigidness and all the processes in our company, and this guy takes it to an extreme. On the cover is a close up of him blowing a bubble, and the title of the book is in rainbow colors.

My favorite part of the book so far is he publishes two things: 1. His letter of resignation to P&G, and 2. His final performance review. I'll share excerpts from his final performance review here, as I find it pretty funny:

"Doug brings an extraordinary degree of creativity, entreprenuerial instinct, and energy to his work. He has brought eight product concepts from invention to shipping, all within calendar 1990... with a ninth project to follow. This has to be something of a record.

Doug has just one key opportunity for improvement: he needs to treat the "system" with more respect... (he) takes almost malicious pleasure in "beating the system" by developing new product concepts faster and cheaper than if work were done through traditional channels... It does not help to rub people's noses in their inefficiencies, their cost of operation or their tortoiselike speed... Finally, and of much lesser importance, Doug has a too-low tolerance for paperwork, memo writing, budgeting, and similar administrative errata which, until successfully addressed, will limit his effectiveness in conventional management assignments."

THIS GUY IS MY HERO. :)

Personal Profiles #4

Here we go... Dean doesn't actually have a blogger account, just usually responds as anonymous. But he's there.

Name: Dean

How we met: Our parents met at the public library, and when they found out their kids were the same age, I got invited to their house.

Commentary: Dean and I were roommates for 2 straight years over in the Lakeshore dorms. All through HS and college, people claimed that they could not tell us apart. Our names being 4 letter words that start with D probably didn't help either. Dean had three stupid talents that I learned during my 2 years as his roomate: 1. He could recite all the words to "One Week" by the Bare Naked Ladies. 2. He could solve a rubik's cube in 5 minutes. 3. He could cup his hands play them as an instrument, blowing through the hole where his thumbs came together (it sounded kinda like what a recorder sounds like... his signature song was "Eternal Flame," and could even hit the high note).

Favorite Moments:
-The one time we were playing trivial pursuit at the aforementioned Winston's house over New Years Eve, and when the answer was something like "Carbon tetrachloride hydrogenase" he started yelling "DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH" and romped all over the room
-The two years as roommates at Wisconsin

Relationship defining moments:
-After college, whenever we would talk on the phone, our conversations would cover three topics: 1. Stocks 2. Football and 3. Girls
-One year for a Halloween party, we dressed up as each other... Dean wore my Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt and I wore his stuff. People got a kick out of that

Church League Softball Fistfight

(Thanks to Jim for coming up with the theme song for this blog... this is an actual song that was featured on the Bob and Tom show)

So on Thursday I played a double header softball game to make it a record 5 softball games in 3 days. We did end up winning both, making my record for the week 2-3. Our team did get on the topic of blogs during yesterday's games, and one person in particular said she'd never read a blog. So I told her I'd talk about her and that'll get her to read it. She still says she'd never do it. So Liz, eat your heart out. You WILL read this blog at some point. Liz is a ringer who originally was supposed to play on the Tuesday team, but broke her wrist in one of her 500 volleyball games a week (the 5 games is a lot to me, it's a normal week for her). Everytime she gets out she says she hates the game. OK, so everyone who reads this blog and knows Liz, tell her all the gossip I'm writing about her.

So you're probably wondering about the title... So in the second game of the doubleheader, in about the 6th inning, the pitcher on their team yells at someone on their bench because he's holding up their last fielder from getting into the game. I thought he was kidding around with him, but maybe not... So this guy, who's not in the game, starts jawing at the pitcher, and starts walking out toward the mound. The aforementioned Liz is actually waiting to bat during all this. The guy gets to the mound and he and the pitcher yell at each other for about 5 minutes. I think the team's some sort of religious group, because I heard the guy say "Don't disrespect me. I don't disrespect you, I call you Reverend..." To top it all off, he was carrying a baby carrier the whole time. I don't think there was a baby in the carrier, but it looked pretty strange to have a guy yelling at a supposed Reverend holding a baby carrier.

The rest of the game went off without a hitch... The team overall seemed pretty friendly (lots of cheering going on). But definitely a first for me...

Stuff

It's 11:45, and I probably should be sleeping instead of blogging... but oh well.

So today is the middle day of the all softball all the time week. We were scheduled to do 1 on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, and was subbing for 2 on Thursday. Ended up subbing for another team as well today, so total softball games for the week after tomorrow will be 5. So far I'm 0-3, think it's time to break that streak tomorrow!

Never thought a 3 hour jet lag was that big of deal, but it's affected me and still is a little bit. I tend to wake up in the middle of the night, and when it is time to wake up my body still feels confused. Hopefully that'll end tonight.

No break this weekend as class starts... Management 903!

The big 165

OK, after a week long vacation of pigging out, I'm posting my goals to drop some weight right here on my blog.

Today's weight: 175 lbs

Goal: 165 lbs

And we're off!

Dale

Fun at a beach in Vancouver

Nothing like a little football throwing on the beach...
Oops:


Canadian lifeguard: "I'm gonna hafta stop you, eh? There's a sign, eh?"

The Butterfly effect

Prior to the Underground tour, we had tempted fate by crossing the street while the light was red. Afterwards, we started seeing the effects...

At the end of the tour, we were told that you could get a beer for $2 with our ticket stubs. So of course we headed to the bar. The bartender was a younger woman, with an alternative look to her. As we approached, she informed us that she closed at 6. I looked at my watch, and it said 5:40. So we said OK, and proceeded to order. From then on, at 5:45, 5:47, and 5:50 she reminded us that we had 15, 10, and 5 minutes left. After I had finished, she told Hana "You're lagging behind." After our "5 minute" warning, I said "I got it" and really held myself back from starting a verbal confrontation. At 5:55, we left, and needless to say, did not leave a tip.

The next day, we rode the Ducks (a vehicle that can go on both land and water). The tour guy was great, absolutely funny, and lotsa fun. We went from land into the lake, and cruised by some of the million dollar houseboats on the lake. The guide took us to the house that was in Sleepless in Seattle and we started snapping pictures. One of the people sitting outside yelled "You're too close." Another man came out of his house and started yelling at us as well, one thing I remember was "You're a nuisance." The guide proceeded to wave and yell "Hello! How are you?" and turned around to make a second pass. It was pretty obvious he was pretty po'ed about it, as well as the person on the boat...

As we sit here in Vancouver, we expect a raging infero when we get back to Seattle on Saturday... :)

Seattle quote

"Living in Seattle is like being with a beautiful woman who's sick all the time."

Seattle some more

Continuing with the Seattle trip:

We had a coffee at the original Starbucks at Pike Market. The logo for the original Starbucks was a bit raunchier than the current Starbucks logo, as you can see in the picture (in the current one, she is a bit more covered up). At this Starbucks, there was the nicest order taker ever... she was this Japanese girl that looked like she was totally and completely ecstatic to be serving you. At that point, we observed that the people in Seattle were REALLY nice (the cars stop for pedestrians). At the salmon place the server was a girl, probably college aged. My friend Hana is notorious for asking deep penetrating questions about everything, including salmon (what's the difference between your great salmon and your really great salmon?). Hana was in rare form with this waitress. But she smilingly answered all his questions and gave a lot of awesome insights. One of the dangers of this niceness was I thought all of the women who talked to me really liked me.

The next day, we came to a red light while walking to the Underground tour, and were tempted to just cross, Madison style. We paused because the whole city seemed to be so courteous and law abiding and nice, and us crossing at a red light may create a butterfly effect (i.e. a butterfly flaps his wings in Tokyo and causes a hurricane in the US) and all of Seattle will go to crap. We decided to cross anyway and risk it... (dot dot dot)

The Underground Tour was something that Karen had mentioned in a comment earlier... The story is the city decided to raise all the streets to manage the flooding issues, but couldn't agree with the business on the road to do it. So they raised the roads and kept the sidewalks where they were, resulting in a 8-35 ft drops from the road to the sidewalk. Later they built sidewalks to fill the gap, resulting in an underground open space (as seen in this picture). This is just one of the weird, screwed up things that I've learned about this city.

It was after this tour that the butterfly effect started kicking in...

Salmon update:

My salmon streak was broken at lunch yesterday, as we had a spicy chicken pizza near the Seattle center (it was excellent, similar to Dewey's back in Cinci). But it was restarted at dinner, as I had a British Columbia Atlantic Salmon stuffed with shrimp and dungeness crab (British Columbia Atlantic??? More to come...). Unfortunately, it was broken again today at lunch as we had really good Dim Sum in Vancouver. Tomorrow, sushi buffet! All the raw fish you can eat...

Sleepy in Seattle

Stupidfest Northwest kicked off yesterday in Seattle... Stupidfest is an annual get together of some of my former engineer roommates and friends. It's called that because of the fact we're all dorky engineers, and others (not me) played Magic during some of the first ones. Stupidfest started off with Dean missing his flight San Jose and Hana's flight being delayed coming out of O'Hare. My flight from Cinci arrives without incident, and everyone else arrives within a few hours. On day one, we head to the Pike Market and have lunch at Jack's Fish Spot. This meal is the first of 4 meals in row and counting where I have had salmon: beer battered salmon for lunch, three types of grilled salmon for dinner, and today baked salmon sandwich for lunch and salmon sushi for dinner.

We make our obligatory visit to the Space Needle after walking around a lot at Pike Market St. We attempt to get on the monorail, but upon getting to the station we see that the monorail is out of service...

Today was a fun day, as we make our return to Pike Market and hit the Underground Tour. But I'm sleepy and will continue at another time... Except for this picture, which if we were writing a book we could put in the front cover for Stupidfest. The sculpture is entitled "Pi in the sky."