Sports and Mom

My Mom is in town now visiting and we are having lots of fun taking the twins to her hotel to use the swimming pool.

Red Sox beat the Spankees again today, that make 5 of 6 so far this season. And the other big news for Boston is they acquired Randy Moss from Oakland in a trade, I am stunned about this news. Tom Brady throwing to Moss is very intriguing and if it all works out the Pats might have another remarkable season.

N. had on her Big Papi jersey on today and we saw his home run on espn which made us all hoot and holler.

I finished my first running race of the season, the 10 mile Lakefront 10, body is sore but soul is happy. To celebrate, we of course had to go eat lunch at Chili's! :)

The professor in C++ class gave us all our current (almost final grades), and my average is 95 percent so I will get an A, as the final exam was all ready graded, and I only need to turn in one more homework assignment.

I started taking blood pressure medicine and a multivitamin every morning for health.

J. is really interested in playing marbles, so I need to do that with her at some point.

N&J are really enjoying having their Nana here, and it is very relaxing for me too.

Stephen Hawking Goes in Space

I really really like Stephen Hawking and I hope he can get more fundinf for space travel. Below is what he said, very illuminating.

"Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons," he said before the flight. "First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

Update

Went to Chicago Wednesday night to meet P and M and see VNV Natin concert, which ended up not being very fun. I got down there early and so was able to pick up my wonderful race shirt for Sunday's 10 mile "Lakefront 10" race.

And I got to see some of the Red Sox game at a sports bar, which was nice.

P said there is a film he just saw written by Ishiguro, he ws going to email me the info at some point.

I am finally on the final episode of Twin Peaks, but have held back from watching it.

Family is doing great, N. lost both of her two bottom teeth and the tooth fairy left her $5 each time, so she is now rich. Did a cool homework assignment with J. lat night where she had to draw pictures after thinking about a word. One was - in, and she asiad "FIN" and she drew a shark, then she said I need to write fin somewhere but I don't want to write it in the water because that is where the shark is swimming. I thought that was hilarious.

We went Tuesday to their school for another family reading night, turnout was sparse and so they worked on the computers (applie iBooks just like mine) for about an hour and a half, then we read stories. I again met their computer teacher and she said they are really smart, which I all ready knews. N. kept using software to paint and create cool pictures wheich she printed out and gave me, and J. worked on writing sentences and then she even did some math problems.

Red Sox presently have the best record in the entire league which is expected but still nice.

Tonight is the final exam for the C++ programming class, I was up late last night studying. I believe I will do just fine.

All for now.

VT

I really don't know what to write about the Virginia Tech killings, except to say that it is terribly awful and terribly sad. I remember telling my Mom that I was surprised when I found my daughters school for kindergarden hhas automatic locks on the door from the first bell until school close.

I found this eulogy bittersweet, due to all the things I learned about the Holocaust. Made me imagien that this person survived all of those horrors until to be killed years later in another horror:

"Liviu Librescu, 76, was a Holocaust survivor who, his son said, will be remembered as a hero. He "blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu told the AP. "Students started opening windows and jumping out." The elder Librescu, a professor at Virginia Tech, was recognized internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, the head of the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department at Virginia Tech told the AP. He was born and received his advanced degrees in Romania.

At age 76, Librescu was among the thirty-two people who were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007. He was killed during a class in the Norris Hall Engineering Building by a student (Cho Seung-hui, 23). Librescu held the door of his classroom shut while Cho was attempting to enter it; although he was shot through the door, he was able to prevent the gunman from entering the classroom until his students had escaped through the windows. A number of Librescu's students have called him a hero because of his actions, with one student, Asael Arad, saying that all the professor's students "lived because of him". Librescu's son, Joe, said he had received e-mails from several students who said he had saved their lives and regarded him as a hero whilst many newspapers also reported him as the hero of the massacre. He was killed on Yom HaShoah (the Holocaust Remembrance Day) in Israel and Judaism. He will be buried in Israel, where his son Arieh lives, according to his family wishes."

Visitors

My Dad is coming to visit Saturday to Tuesday and then the subsequent Saturday my Mom comes to visit for a week and half or thereabouts.

And I am going to the doctor Monday for a complete physical since I have not been to the doctor in mnay years and my knee hurts a lot from the running.

update galore

woke up to snowfall today yikes no wonder my run last night was so darn cold

my body does not recover as quickly any more, makes me feel old, truly does

my knees, legs, feet all ache and I got really stiff after the run

also went to local blockbuster and got two rentals- the holiday which we watched and was pretty good, light romantic comedy, and the pursuit of happyness which we wll watch tonight

in my fantasy soccer league my team is ranked in 61,653 place out of 1,256,314 teams/players, this is the highest ranking I have ever had this late in the season, a lot of the amazing score is due to having Cristiano Ronaldo from Man United as my team's captain, so he always gets me double points(captain is only player with this double points rule in the fantasy league)

after dinner we all had a bike ride, and it was cold but not as bad as it got later on in the evening, i am doing a minimun of 3 miles lately, but am thinking this cold is just no good, i want to keep my level of fitness up and start doing the much longer, fun runs but i hate this cold and am not wanting to get injured.

the family is all great we are in the process of renovating our big bathroom, hopefully this will begin next week.

the girls still are now reading stories to us at night which is very enjoyable, j. read me the book called "Snow" and she did a fantastic job. And I told N. to write me some more of her books and she said she will.

And I need to watch the last 3 episodes of Twin Peaks season 2, will likely do that Friday night.

Friday there is yet another exam in class, after this Friday there are only 3 more lectures and then the final exam, so I am happy. SQL and Java next most likely.

Opening Day

Red Sox are leading in their home opener 14-1, amazing.

the other Julia

When N&J went to preschool they had a friend named Julia and since there were two Julias in the same calss, the teacher taught them to sign everything as Julia W. and Julia S.

Well Julia S. had her birthday party last night and we all went, it was lots of fun, and I managed to spend quite a bit of time talking politics and history with Julia S's dad, which was really cool, he told me I was the first American he had ever spoken to that knew so much about history. I told him when I went to Auschwitz last summer I studied and read extensively about it all and that is why, it is all still fresh in my mind.

I ran three times all ready this week and I managed to get most of my work done for tonight's class. Contemplating taking an abbreviated summer class though not sure. I just don't like paying the full amount for a seven week course as opposed to 17 weeks.

I think with programming, the 17 weeks suits me better because I can really absorb it all.

Dice-K struck out 10 inhis debut, I went to a local sports bar, waitied until 1:20 to go from work, just to watch him. They had the Cubs and White Sox games on, I had to specifically ask for the manager to request they put the Boston game on, so I missed the first inning. But I saw the 2nd and 3rd innings. Dice-K looked impressive, his delivery always changes speeds and his footwork was very unusual, he definitely had hitters off balance, it looked like they have trouble figuring out his release point. Now, is Schilling can stay healthy and pitch as he is capable, and with Beckett settling in to the American League, I think the Sox have 3 good frontline pitchers. Wakefield remains an innings eater and will be up and down, and I assume eventually when he is fully receovered from his cancer treatm,ents, Lester will return and be slotted as the fifth starter.

Papelbon closed the game and had 2 strikeouts which was cool to see.

I keep wearing my red colored home jacket around town on the weekends, feel kinda silly but N&J like it. Oh well, people will know I'm a fan I suppose.

All for now.

Irish leaving Boston

Boom times, crackdown slow emerald wave
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff | March 18, 2007

A couple of months ago, David Knox and his girlfriend, Elaine, threw in the towel. After seven years in the Boston area, they were tired of looking over their shoulders, tired of being told there was no way they could become legal residents, and so they decided to move back to Ireland.

About 100 of their friends gathered at Bad Abbots, a Quincy pub, to bid the couple farewell. A band, Tara Hill, serenaded them with the appropriately titled "Leaving on a Jet Plane." Knox hugged his teammates on the pub's soccer team. Elaine's eyes watered.

The bittersweet celebration, full of laughs, heartfelt toasts and not a few tears, was reminiscent of the "wakes" the Irish held for those sailing off to America a century ago, never to return. But these days, the wakes are held in pubs in Dorchester and Brighton, or in apartments in Quincy and South Boston, for those heading home.

Ireland's booming economy and the crackdown on illegal immigration that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have combined to produce a reversal of migration patterns for those who have long made up the biggest, and most influential, ethnic group in Boston.



Put simply, more people are returning to Ireland, and fewer are replacing them, reversing a pattern of immigration that was established in the late 1840s, when Ireland's potato blight killed 1 million people and sent 2 million others scurrying for the ships.

In one generation, Boston was transformed from an overwhelmingly Protestant city in which most of the inhabitants traced their ancestry to England, to a largely Roman Catholic city in which thousands had roots in Ireland. The Irish came to dominate Boston and the metropolitan area -- first its politics, then its commerce -- like no other ethnic group, putting their stamp on a place that is universally regarded as the most Irish city in America.

But today it is a paler shade of green; the city is fast losing its distinctive Irishness. Some will mourn the change, and some will not.

There are many immigrant stories in the new Boston. The Irish experience is one of them.

The successive waves that made Boston a famous outpost of Irish culture, from traditional music to Gaelic games, have suddenly ebbed. According to FAS, Ireland's training and employment authority, only 1,700 Irish went to the United States last year looking for work, many of them headed for Boston. That compares to 23,000 in 1990.

Trades once dominated by the Irish worker -- often undocumented, but who was checking? -- are increasingly the domain of other ethnic groups. The painters, roofers, house cleaners, and elder care workers who so often were Irish are now more likely to be Brazilian. And the number of Irish brogues that once greeted people at restaurants in the Boston area, and especially on Cape Cod during the summer, have dwindled, as the number of Irish college students taking summer jobs here has been halved since 9/11.