Checksum Arcanius

Thats is the order of the day. On the way to church, I tuned into 710 am to listen to the Hawks last feeble attempts to take down the mighty Patriots. I hate to say I told you so on this one, and hopefully I’m wrong, but we’ll see.

Then was church. I went mostly because I promised a friend I would go. Andrew is a good teacher, and my Palm only has stupid games.

Then I picked up Angela and we did this senior photo thing. It was windy, and some would argue cold outside as well. But we survived. 142 shots later, we were still alive. Hopefully some of them turn out. Cause as much as Angela liked it, I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a model photographer.

First (for all us nerds): On my way to Ichiro’s record-breaking game…

Second: At Edgar’s final game – as a player, at least.
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I don’t remember ever watching a regular season Seahawks game that they actually won. Today was no exception. I’m a fairweather fan, and I thought it was safe. The Hawks were 3-0, with a suffocating defense. The fourth quarter, however, the Seahawk’s defense more deserved suffocation than displayed suffocating skills. Breakdowns were prevalent thoughout the Ram’s three quick marches down the field. And the trend continued into the overtime, as some lardball tried hard, but was unable to run down a much faster wide reciever. So much for the season.

A sign at the final Mariners game of the season – and the final game of a stellar career of Edgar Martinez – read liek this: Edgar Martinez is spelled C-L-A-S-S. And that was about all Edgar had going for him on his final night. It ended relatively disappointingly, with the veteran designated hitter grounding into two double plays and with a few pop flies. But, for the second time in as many attended games, I was struck by the fact that the moment was swallowing almost everything else up.

Edgar was always one of my favorite players, ever since the wee old Kingdome days. And I’ll never forget what is now termed “the hit that saved baseball in Seattle.” For that hit, I was sitting in the shoe department of Nordstrom’s in Bellevue Square, watching on the smallish, vertically stacked TVs. In fact, the whole store was pretty mcuh watching those TVs when it happened. It was a pretty exciting time – the first time in the playoffs, and beating the Yankees at that, in such spetacular fashion. Its one for the ages, and one that a loss to Texas can’t ever take away.

Sometime earlier this week, Dan suggested that we get tickets to Friday’s Mariners game, since he predicted that Ichiro would break the record that day. So I agreed, and when Ichiro didn’t break the record the game before, Dan went ahead and purchased the best tickets available: 300 level, 25h row, seats 9 and 10. And yes, the 25th row IS the last row. Seats 9 and 10 also happen to be the hardest to get to in the row. And we were late, because the will call line people don’t understand last name eltter frequency. So, after hustling up the many stairs to the 300 level, Texas having finished batting, we went into the wrong section just to make sure we would see the hit if it happened.

And, of course, it did happen. Hit number 257 was a classic Ichiro, chopped just over the third baseman’s head. Fireworks went off and the crowd roared. We retreated and made our way to the proper section. Unfortunately, the usher didn’t direct us correectly, and we ended up in the wrong seats again. We watched the next inning like that, then the real seatholders came, so we had to go find our real seats again.

And we didn’t have to wait long. When Ichiro came up to bat, the crowd stood. He sliced off his obligatory fouls, then put the ball straight down the middle. Everyone knew what had just happened. Nobody sat down for at least five miutes. The Mariners emerged from the dugout to greet Ichiro. We clapped. And cheered. And clapped some more. Fireworks, rare at Safeco, were in abundance. Nifty preprepared graphics lit the outfield screens. And for all the melodrama, the best part was Ichiro’s mild, unassuming acceptance of the praise for a job well done, and then he got back to business, helping the Mariners go on to get the win.

But most impressive of all, to me, was the realization that I had when it happened; a realization which has come to me only rarely throughout my life: that these moments are the ones that make the human condition worthwhile. The pain and suffering, bad politics and worse policies, high taxes to pay for stadiums and to waste on social programs – all of these things don’t really matter in the long run. Overcoming them together – as an amazing player and his fanatics did on Friday – makes it all seem ok for the time being.

Just finished watching the BYU vs. BSU game. It was a bit disappointing watching BYU come so close, just to loose on a missed Matt Payne field goal – which is a pretty rare event from a solid player. Life goes on, though.

Today went a lot better than yesterday at work. Thing got moving early, and I was able to get a lot done. I took a ridiculously long lunch break (2.5 hours, but it wasn’t supposed to be that long) in order to go up to a building that my brtoher manages to take a look at the sprinkler system, because suposedly I am an expert on the things because I spent a summer installing them a few years ago. With some ideas from the the maintenance guy, we got the water flowing again. Unfortunately, in a vain attempt to get water ut earlier, all the valves were manually set on. So I got to go around, braving the spraying water (which wasn’t too hard on such a warm day) turning the valves back off. But some of them were really hard to find. After that was done, it had been way too long and I didn’t really have time to try dinking around with the controller to program it. Either somebody else will or I’ll have the “opportunuty” to try it later.

After getting back from work, I got back to work and things went well through six o’clock. Then I wrapped things up and headed for Grass Lawn park via a place to eat. The place to eat ended up being Subway on Willow’s road. The park was extremely busy, so we ended up playing on some not-too-nie grass, but the game ended up being very good. My team got down by six at one point, but we managed to tie it. Unfortunately, the other team scored again with just seconds left and took the game. But it was still good, because I am noticing that I am either jumping higher or simply timing my jumps better and have a better idea of how high I can jump. I like to think that I’m jumping higher though. And my forehand flick isn’t up to snuff yet, but its improving, especially for lighter throws. The two-a-week frisbee is going to be good.

After ultimate, I tok Dan and Bob home, and then Bob and I talked about the TRC summer hack sessions for a while. We laid out tenative dates, and I will be checking with Larry for availability of his place and my mom for availability of some resources at the office park. What would be ideal is simply a place large enough for two or three groups of 3-5 people to meet where there are simple things like soldering irons and electricity. Ok, a milling machine, lathe, and bandsaw would be nice too. But still, that really isn’t asking too much, I don’t think, especially after a $2+ million addition to the school that benefits primarily the drama club. But hey, we have our very own room now (never mind that its smaller than the space we had before, and its all we have now, and its really just what the Drama club vacated because its too far from the new Perfoming Arts Center. Meh. Enough for now.

And after that, I came home. Pretty good nice long day.