Easter at Encanto Park

We rode our bikes to Encanto Park today, which was crowded with 1000s of people it seemed. We went into the amusement park area which was really cool.

See below the source of the tooting noises we hear all weekend most of the year.

The Diamondbacks are in First Place

There, I've said it, probably won't be able to say it again, but while it lasts...

Comments Fixed

It was pointed out to me that it was impossible to enter a comment here. That is now fixed, in case anyone actually reads this drivel and has anything to say about it.

Currently Reading (Stick/Metropolitan Phoenix)

Could go either way on this one

Pat Venditte, a junior at Creighton University, is the only ambidextrous pitcher in the NCAA. He uses a custom glove which works on either hand. A reliever, he pitches left-handed to left-handed batters and switches to right-handed for right-handed batters. He pitches more innings than the typical reliever since he has two arms to tire out.

According to the New York Times: "A switch-pitcher facing a switch-hitter could make a fine Abbott and Costello routine. Against Nebraska last year, a switch-hitter came to the plate right-handed, prompting Venditte to switch to his right arm, which caused the batter to move to the left-hand batter’s box, with Venditte switching his arm again. Umpires ultimately restored order, applying the rule (the same as that in the majors) that a pitcher must declare which arm he will use before throwing his first pitch and cannot change before the at-bat ends."

There has never been a switch-pitcher in the modern era of Major League Baseball, although in 1995, Greg Harris of the Montreal Expos did pitch one inning in this fashion, in what was considered a stunt. MLB scouts are reportedly looking at Venditte as a possible late round draft choice.

Agreed

I'm a major league outfielder. I need to catch the frickin' ball.

Gila Bend Freeway

So everyday I come home to horrid congestion on I-10 as it passes through downtown as the Papago Inner Loop. Any traffic map you ever see at rush hour has that section in red (I made it red on the map there). It is not mentioned by the Detour Dans of the airwaves because it is always like that, it is not news.

A huge contributor to this problem is through traffic on I-10, which is a major route across the southern US, going from Jacksonville to Santa Monica.

The proposal to relieve this congestion is to build the South Mountain Freeway, connecting SR-202, where it hits I-10 at Pecos Road, to I-10 in the West Valley (I drew in a blue line). This would allow through trucks and other folks wanting to avoid downtown a path around the congestion. The problem with this is that it is hugely expensive to build an urban freeway, that it is years away from even beginning construction and that there are many environmental and political issues standing in its way, not the least of which is that the City of Phoenix has allowed people to build homes in what has long been the planned route.

A reasonable alternative, from where I sit, is for the state to build a freeway along the route of SR-85, from I-8 at Gila Bend north to I-10. This route is already heavily used. Anyone travelling from Phoenix to San Diego, Yuma or Puerto Peñasco is familiar with this road. As you travel from Tucson north on I-10, there are signs urging motorists to use I-8 to SR-85 to I-10 as a Phoenix bypass, but it is not used so much by truck traffic due to the lack of a freeway.

Building a 4 lane freeway 35 miles through the desert parallel to an existing roadway has got to be cheaper than the planned South Mountain Freeway and could be done much faster. It would seem to me that this could be done as a short term means of diverting traffic and that the South Mountain Freeway could still be built as growth continues.

I've seen worse days

The Diamondbacks looked a little shaky with Webb giving up a few runs but Eric Byrnes sparked a 3 run come-from-behind rally in the 8th and the bullpen held as the Diamondbacks won on opening day, something that doesn't seem to happen very often.

The notion of The
Ohio State University winning the championship of anything was more than I could handle, so I was pleased to see them lose to Florida tonight in the finals of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

The guy answers his email, I am impressed..

Derrick Hall is the President of the Arizona Diamondbacks

From: Hall, Derrick [DHall@dbacks.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 5:51 PM
To: Paul Benjamin
Subject: RE: High Definition Diamondbacks Games

We heard they've been giving that reply. We are working out the details and hope to have them. Thanks Paul.

Sent by GoodLink (www.good.com)


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Benjamin [mailto:paul@howmanyroads.net]
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 05:26 PM US Mountain Standard Time
To: Hall, Derrick
Subject: RE: High Definition Diamondbacks Games

So does that mean that we will be getting the games in HD soon? We were
told by someone from KTVK that it was your choice not to provide the games.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hall, Derrick [mailto:DHall@dbacks.com]
> Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 11:29 AM
> To: Paul Benjamin
> Subject: RE: High Definition Diamondbacks Games
>
>
> Yes. It was not our decision. We are naturally going to go
> all HD if the station elects to do so. We would love to
> provide all of our games in high def.
>
> Sent by GoodLink (www.good.com)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Benjamin [mailto:paul@howmanyroads.net]
> Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 11:20 AM US Mountain Standard Time
> To: Hall, Derrick
> Subject: High Definition Diamondbacks Games
>
> Dear Mr. Hall,
>
> I have been a Diamondbacks season ticketholder since the
> beginning. I am a
> big supporter of the team and watch nearly every game that I
> don't attend.
> (While the tickets are in my name, I share with a group and
> attend about 20
> home games each year). I was pleased last year to be able to
> watch the home
> games that were on Channel 3 in HD. While I am a Cox
> subscriber, I also
> have over the air capabilities on my plasma TV and, living
> just north of downtown, can pick up the
> signal easily with
> a small indoor antenna. I have been really upset at your
> decision to not
> provide the games to Channel 3 this year in HD. My
> understanding is that
> the issue was the lack of availability of KTVK-HD on Cox. It
> appears now,
> however, that Channel 3 will start doing their news shows in
> HD later this
> month and that Cox, under the new Cox-Belo agreement, will
> start carrying
> the digital channel on Cox 703. Can you tell me if this
> (along with DirecTV
> carrying KTVK-HD as well) will change your decision not have
> the games in HD
> this year? Any insight into this situation would be great.
> Thanks for
> taking the time to read this.
> --
> Paul Benjamin
> http://ratinthekitchen.blogspot.com
>
>
>

Red State Showdown

Another national championship with Florida vs. Ohio State. The two states most responsible for the moron in the White House in the battle for supremacy among the mediocre schools.

And to think that it was almost Georgetown vs. UCLA.

Bye Bye Briny Breezes

In the late 1950's, my parents and I would drive to Florida for 3 weeks each February - March. We would pull a travel trailer with us and stay at a trailer park called Briny Breezes, right on the coast between Delray Beach and Boynton Beach. In 1958 they offered the lots for sale. Lots near the ocean went for $2500, while the lots on the other side of AIA were $2000. (Prices are from wikipedia, I don't actually remember the amounts.) My dad turned down the opportunity, but would later say that he probably should have taken the deal. We went back one more time and rented a space from someone who had bought one. We went to Florida one more time and stayed in Hollywood in what was then the only other ocean front trailer park on Florida's Atlantic coast. We didn't like that place, primarily because it was predominately populated with French Canadians. I looked for the place in Hollywood years later and saw that it had been replaced by high rise condominiums. My dad would not be pleased to learn the latest, as Briny Breezes, the last trailer park on the coast, is being purchased by a developer who is paying over half a BILLION dollars for the place. Each lot owner will receive over $1,000,000. Not bad for a $2500 investment. Article here.

Links

John says in his blog that he doesn't know how to make links work. I will demonstrate here so that he will know how to do it AND to see if he reads this... (actually I will probably put a comment in his blog about it to see if he looks at comments.)

When composing a post, select some text and click on the link icon.

That will bring up a dialog box in which you enter the URL. Leave the dropdown list as "http:"

Up in Honey's Room

I should start out by saying that I feel ripped off. This is a reflection on the situation, not the book or the author. The first Elmore Leonard novel that I read was Cuba Libre, in late 1999. Over the next year or so I managed to read all of the non-western books that he had written. Since then, a new Leonard novel has been an event for me. I have everything from Pagan Babies forward in hardback, not because I am a collector or want them as trophies, I just haven’t been able to wait. But then when I would have one in my hands, I wouldn't read it right away. I would save it for the right moment. Tishomingo Blues, for example, I read in a deck chair on a Panama Canal cruise. In some cases I saved it so long that the paperback was out before I read it. This time was different. I received a copy of Up in Honey's Room, which will be on sale May 8, before it was released. I was one of a handful of regulars in the online forum at Elmore Leonard's website who were given advanced copies. The catch was that you had to write a review. No savoring, no waiting, just read it. The book isn't even out yet and I am already done with it, waiting for the next one. It would have been worth the wait.

Up in Honey's Room is the third story featuring U.S. Marshall Carl Webster. The first, 2005's The Hot Kid, introduced us to the young lawman, who in the story would be glorified in True Detective and the book-within-the book Carl Webster: The Hot Kid of the Marshalls Service. "If I have to pull my weapon I'll shoot to kill." We also meet his wife-to-be Louly, who wants the world to think she is Pretty Boy Floyd's girlfriend. It was set in the 1930s in Oklahoma. Carl's father Virgil, who he lives with, had been a supporting character in Cuba Libre, a Marine who had been blown off the deck of the USS Maine when the Spanish blew it up.

The second installment, Comfort to the Enemy, was not a book at all, but rather a 14 part serial that ran in the New York Times Sunday Magazine from September to December of 2005. Set during World War II, we saw Carl investigating a murder of a German POW at a camp in Oklahoma, his relationship with one of the prisoners, Jurgen Schrenk, and the ultimate escape of Jurgen and another one of the prisoners.

Up in Honey's Room takes us to Detroit, where Carl is tracking the escaped Jurgen Schrenk. It is April of 1945 and the war in Europe is winding down.

So the debate goes: What makes an Elmore Leonard novel so interesting? Is it the characters, the plot, or maybe the dialog?

First let's look at the characters.

One of my problems here is that I finally realized that I don't particularly like Carl Webster. In many ways he is a typical Leonard protagonist, a man of few words, strong on principle, attractive to women, handy with a gun, etc. Most of the books have a main character that is a variation on this theme, sometimes a law enforcement type, sometimes not. There are a few things about Carlos that don't sit right, though. He seems to be more of a publicity hound than he should be, had read his own publicity one time too many. The part where he made a conscious decision to cheat on his wife, a situation eventually avoided by happenstance rather than a change of heart, bothered the hell out of me.

I actually found the escaped German tank commander to be a more compelling character than Carl, wished we had learned more about him. He seemed like he would have been a fascinating person to meet, have a drink with, discuss the differences between our cultures, etc. I find myself wondering what became of him. Did he fulfill his fantasy about becoming a cowboy?

I was not real fond of the villain here. Leonard's bad guys can be right scary. In my mind, part of that scariness can be attributed to my willingness to believe in the character. Clement Mansell, Ordell Robbie, Lionel Tavalera, Dr. Taulbee, these were all people I could believe existed. I just could not accept Bohdan Krevchenko. The Ukrainian transvestite assassin seemed like too much of a comic book character.

Honey Deal (the family name Diehl was changed at Ellis Island) was a wonderful character. A gold digger with a library card, she worked at J. L. Hudson's in Better Dresses. Otto Penzler, the Waffen-SS officer who escaped with Jurgen, got interesting just before he disappeared from the story on page 83. On the cover of the Advance Reader's Edition of the book, Leonard says that he auditions his characters in the opening scenes and by page 100, if they haven't found their voice, they are out. In this case, it looks to me like Otto found his voice in the part where he was being written out. Darcy Deal was the obligatory redneck, surprisingly not connected (so far as I could find) with Leonard's The Moonshine War, although the time and setting would have fit. Walter Schoen, Honey's ex-husband and Himmler wannabe, managed to be convincing and almost sadly sympathetic. Vera Mezwa, the head of the "spy ring" bothered me at first, I more or less lumped her into the same comic book as her boy Bohdan, but she got better.

There is not a lot of plot in this book but it has some unexpected subtleties to it. You would expect this story to be about Carl tracking down and capturing Jurgen, but that is more of the context than the story. The spy ring (or rather Walter) is hatching a plot. Honey is trying to seduce Carl. What has happened to Otto? Is Darcy going to cause trouble? And so on. This all leads to a confrontation that we see coming for some time, which is resolved in a manner that we don’t see coming.

It’s all pretty satisfying, but the real reason that this book is so enjoyable is the dialog, particularly the conversations that include Honey. There are some great lines, like when Honey says to Jurgen “I got to know more about you, Hun”, but it is the give and take amongst the characters that kept my interest. Carl and Jurgen discussing bull riding and then making fun of “Valter” and his doomed plan to take out FDR. Honey and the FBI guy Kevin talking about the war. Otto and the woman he would run away with, discussing Bertold Brecht.

So what did I think, did I like the book? Definitely. Is this among my favorite Elmore Leonard books? No. I am kind of glad to be done with Mr. Carlos Huntington Webster, actually. Hopefully he welcomes Louly home from the war and he reconsiders the desk assignment, his luck can’t last forever. With Cuba Libre the exception to the rule, I prefer the books written about the present. Elmore Leonard’s sound is at its best when it is the sound of today’s street. I wouldn’t mind finding out what happened to Honey and Jurgen, though.

The complete Up In Honey's Room Reviews thread on The Dutch Forum

Picture from Willo Home Tour 2007

Learning how to provide title and caption.

Phone Stuff

I am experimenting with sending things from my phone to this blog. The previous post was a picture that I sent directly. This post contains a video that I took with the phone. There is supposed to be a "send to blog" feature in pocketcaster that will allow me to send the video direct to the blog, but I can't get that to work yet.

My corner of my lab

Phoenix Home and Garden Show (or something like that)

We went with Mike, Lori and Kaelyn to the Home and Garden show at the Fairgrounds (which is like 5 minutes from the house) last weekend. I think I need to go to such things maybe once every 10 years or so. I had no idea how many different companies were in the business of water purification systems, or offering services of sealing, staining and beautifying concrete.

What a weekend

Saturday was to be an eventful day. John found an apartment in Berkeley (a one month sub-let) that sounded reasonable and has a job interview (helping parolees readjust to society) on Wednesday. So he got his car checked out as road-worthy and we got him ready to leave on Sunday morning. He felt bad about leaving before Mike and Lori had their baby but she wasn't due for another week and a half and the way things go he could wait for a month. He wanted to see them before he left though so Susan planned a spaghetti dinner and proposed that we drive out to Maricopa with the food. A couple of days before, though, Mike said they would come to our house, that they needed to get out of the house... Anyway, just after 6 on Saturday they pulled up in front of the house. Lori needed to visit the bathroom somewhat urgently. When she came back out we found out that her water had just broken. They left for the hospital, which is in Chandler. So we had a very good meal without them. We kept in touch on the phone and things moved slowly. Lori's parents headed in from Yuma and got a hotel room. We last spoke at around 11:00 pm.

John was to leave early in the morning but didn't want to if Kaelyn was about to be born, although he had a fairly precise plan to get to Talia's in Hollywood in time to go out for the evening with her and then leave on Monday morning for Berkeley. When we got up early the next morning, things were moving along but there was no point on heading down there quite yet. At this point they had been at the hospital for about 12 hours. There was some discussion about the baby having an irregular heartbeat which was making them avoid giving Lori pitocin to induce labor. Finally around 11:00 we got a call that things were progressing and went to the hospital. Thus began the waiting room visit that would not end. Mike would come out every hour or so but nothing would have changed. We were beginning to become concerned. John decided that he would NOT attempt the drive that day. I was supposed to be doing the walkthrough on the old house at 4:30. About 3 Susan convinced me that I should stay at the hospital. My attendance at the walkthrough was not mandatory and more of a courtesy. I wanted to do it though because I appreciated the seller of our new house doing it for us. I called Connie the Realtor and she said not to worry, that here daughter would do the walkthrough and I could meet them another time. About 4:45 John and I went to In and Out Burger to pick up some food. As I pulled in Connie called to tell me that the buyers were upset and making noise about delaying the closing. Hard to believe what priorities people have. Not too long after getting back and eating the food, Mike popped out and said that they had decided to do a C section. Close to 7:00, Lori's dad couldn't contain himself, went through the doors, and announced that Kaelyn had been born.

Happened yesterday, details to follow

Settled In

We have finally settled in. Susan had issues with her new job at Fowler ESD and managed to return to PVUSD in her old job, starting today. We went to Durant's for an anniversary dinner on Saturday (5 minutes from home) and took John to Pepe's Taco Villa (more like 12 minutes) on Sunday. Bought a new plasma TV that receives over the air HDTV broadcasts. We can now watch the HDTV Diamondbacks games on Channel 3 that Cox does not carry in HD. It took a little antenna that cost about $50 and hides behind the subwoofer. Got a new multi-zone receiver to drive all of the speakers in the house. We got rid of all the boxes, we can park both cars in the garage, the pool is once again usable, I have mowed the grass 3 times. Life is normal and we like it there.