lex icon

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 237)

Here we were, last Friday afternoon, departing from Seattle aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas, just as most people in Seattle were getting ready to quit for the weekend. On our last cruise, there was a vigorous Setting Sail Party, with tropical drinks, children swimming in the pool, and a steel drum band playing reggae music as people lined the railings to watch the mainland slowly shrink from our view. This time, it was just people lining the rails to watch the mainland slowly shrink from our view.

This would be the nicest weather we would enjoy for the next four days.

High Above the Pride Parade

That's where we're going before heading home. Seattle's Pride Parade is making a lot of noise and flashing a lot of rainbows down below.
.

Spilled Dip 'N Dots

This was my kid's equivalent of Bluto having to watch them dump out all the liquor when Delta House got booted in Animal House. "I spilled the Dip 'N Dots! The Whole Cup of Dip 'N Dots!"
.

Butchart Gardens

This is a peaceful, easy place. I will have much better photos later, for some of my Tuesday Travel Photos.
.

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 236)

This is one of the first things I saw this morning out my balcony aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas. Most of the icebergs floating past us are white, but this one was almost completely clear. The white chunk in the middle was probably deposited by a wave created by claving off the glacier.

We were scheduled to be heading up Tracy Arm Fjord, in the Tracy Arm area, on our way to see the Sawyer Glacier. Instead, because of unsafe pack ice, we are heading up the Endicott Arm, to see the Dawes Glacier, which is itself a spectacular sight, if not quite so amazing as its neighbor.

It looks pretty cold, doesn't it?

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 235)

We're going back to the Inside Passage this week, departing on Friday aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas. One nice thing about the Inside Passage is that once you get between all the islands, the water tends to be very calm. This picture shows the glassy smooth seas just as the sun rises over SE Alaska. I loved not only the color of this shot, but the textures of the sea, the layers of clouds and the silhouette of the land. This time, we'll be traveling right around the summer solstice, so these sunrises are going to come as early as 3:30 a.m. or thereabouts.

Or was this a sunset? I can't remember. I think it was sunrise.

Top ten reasons why Laker games are better than animal rights protests

Top ten reasons why Laker games are better than animal rights protests:

10.  It's socially acceptable to eat burgers and sushi at a Laker game.

 9.  Nobody accuses you of murder at a Laker game.

 8.  Women can wear anything they want to a Laker game.

 7.  There is no reason to fear someone called a "scalper" at a Laker game.

 6.  The Laker leaders don't euthanize most of their dogs and cats.

 5.  Most of the adults at a Laker game have jobs.

 4.  Something about leather balls.

 3.  The chicks are way hotter at Laker games.

 2.  Laker games only cause riots about 4 times per decade.

 1.  At a Laker game, the Spaniards keep their clothes on.

I'm So Full of Happy, I Can't Keep It All Inside

 

That's how I feel as a Laker fan tonight. As much as I would have loved to have a game six in Los Angeles that I could attend, I have things to do and people to see this week, and I'd just as soon have the Lakers be crowned NBA champions now and be done with it. I got my wish, 99-86. Four games to one.

We'll see ring #4 for Kobe and Fisher (who Kobe can't seem to win without); ring #10 for Phil Jackson (the best all-time) as a coach (he also has one as a player for the Knicks). #10 for the L.A. Lakers and #15 for the Laker franchise. So now I feel like Derek Fisher here, so full of happy that you can't keep it all inside. It's a great feeling.

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 234)

Here are the legislative buildings in Victoria, British Columbia, the most "English" place in North America. I was there for all of six hours in August 2007.

I plan to go back there this summer. For another six hours.

The Tustin Chili Cookoff

The Tustin Chili Cookoff was a zoo. Too many people. Not enough chili. Too many annoying vendors who want to convert you to their religion with a stress test. Not enough ice cream. A dead crow in the planter alongside some chili booths, probably carrying West Nile Disease.

Despite all that, we enjoyed ourselves, had some chili, some Dip'n'Dots and bought some shades and balloons before heading off to see the year-end awards banquet for choir.

That one conflicts with the Laker game, so I'll TiVo it and work hard to avoid hearing the results.
.

[Update: I'm glad I set my TiVo to record an extra hour, or I'd have missed the incredible ending to the Lakers' 101-96 win over Orlando in Game Two of the NBA Finals.]

Baseball - You Win Some, You Lose Some

Crash Davis was right.

Sometimes you win: My Titans of Cal State Fullerton are headed back to the College World Series in Omaha after dominating their regional and super regional, winning five games in which they outscored their opponents by an average of 10.6 runs per game. It's the 7th trip to Omaha for CSUF in the 11 years that the NCAA has used the super regional system to determine berths in the CWS.

Sometimes you lose: I went to Anaheim Stadium to watch one of the boys' CIF baseball championship games - #1 seed Beckman against South Hills. I was rooting for Beckman for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they are coached by my cousin. Anyhow, great season and all, but the boys came up short 8-2. Almost every run and rally came about as the result of a mistake, an unusual play or some quirky turn of events, making the game quite entertaining unless you had a strong rooting interest in the Patriots.

Sometimes it rains: but just a little.

Laughing Students and Four Other Random Passing Thoughts

Remember when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an audience at Columbia University that there were no gays in his country, and they all laughed at him? U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had a moment like that in China this week. China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. Suffice it to say, they aren't so sure that their investments are safe. Speaking at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s, Geithner told students that  "Chinese assets [in the U.S.] are very safe." The students laughed in his face. College students in China have about as much respect for our Treasury Secretary's understanding of economics as American students have of Iran's president's understanding of homosexuals.

Say all you want about President Bush's record on abortion, but one thing is clear - he did keep the abortion doctors free from attack by the psycho "pro-life" terrorists like Scott Roeder. During the Bush administration, there was not a single murder of an abortion doctor, nor an attempt, and there was just one attack on an abortion clinic.

If you were a lawyer involved in a case where your client was beaten by a Puerto Rican gang member, and one of the jurors offered her opinion that, as a woman who grew up with the richness of experience of a Latina woman of Puerto Rican ancestry, she would be able to come to a wiser decision than those white guys sitting next to her in the jury box, you would move to have the judge exclude her from the jury for cause, and the judge would grant your motion. Apparently, however, that excused juror might make an outstanding Supreme Court justice.

Rachelle Spector, wife of record producer and convicted murderer Phil Spector, has had her gag-order lifted, and she's talking about the way they are treating her murderous husband: "He's locked in a 5-by-9 cell, 23 1/2 hours a day," Rachelle Spector said. "They treat people worse than animals. I want that known." Duly noted. Now, if only she would realize that her husband is a murderer, which makes him actually worse than an animal.

Laker fans, it feels like a sweep right now, doesn't it? But remember the Memorial Day Massacre? The Lakers got killed by the Celtics 148-114 in game one of the 1985 NBA Finals. Then they came back and won game two in Boston, going on to win the series 4-2 for their first series win over the Celtics. Everyone who is counting on another Laker blowout on Sunday should keep the 1985 NBA Finals in mind.

Lakers 100 Magic 75

Awesome! The Lakers enjoyed a dominating win at Staples Center over the Orlando Magic, and it was a blast. I didn't take a lot of photos, but here are a couple I took.

First quarter action, with Dwight Howard preparing to go to the line.

Hedo Turdglue looks to pass into the post.

Lakers 43-39. This was about the last time the Magic were within striking distance.

This was the halftime entertainment.

Halftime warmups.

Kobe gets hammered on the way to another score.

A guy in our section was the "red car", Tony Turbo, for the stupid Chevron colored car races. We won.

The Laker Girls.

Final score: 100-75. Two Jack in the Box tacos for everyone. They were really bad, but we enjoyed them nonetheless. Let's hope for one more coupon for free tacos on Sunday, then two more wins in Orlando.

[updated: 6/5/09]

Lakers 82 Magic 58 After 3

The third quarter was rockin' here at Staples Center. Even better than the second. The defense has been smothering, the offense has been running like a machine. Kobe's 3-point play to put the Lakers up 23 was insane. On a more frivolous note, the red car fan was seated right below us, and the red car won the race.
.

Lakers 53 Magic 43 at Half

That was a great second quarter for the Lakers. Kobe has been unstoppable, Bynum had solid defense on the bigs and the Laker bench is playing great. Two more great quarters like that is too much to ask for, but I'll root for it anyhow.
.
Go Lakers!
.

Lakers v. Magic

I've been to some cool sporting events over the years, but there aren't any I like more than a Laker home game in the NBA Finals. I've been a Laker fan longer than I've been a fan of any other team in any sport. Longer than the Dodgers, the Angels, the Kings, even the Trojans. So being here at Staples Center, which is THE place to be in America tonight, is about as awesome as it gets.

We have decent seats, too. Now, if only the Lakers had a two point lead at the end of one, instead of a 24-22 deficit.
.

Irvine is America's Safest City Five Years Running

For the 5th year in a row, Irvine has been declared America's safest large city with respect to the number of violent crimes per capita during the calendar year 2008, according to newly released FBI statistics. Irvine actually enjoyed its lowest violent crime rate yet, down 10 percent from 2007.

More Taxes on the Middle Class and Four Other Passing Observations

Remember how hard Democratic nominee Barack Obama campaigned against taxing health care benefits and raising taxes on people who make less than $250,000? Yeah, well, President Barack Obama doesn't feel so strongly, now that he's figured out that someone has to pay for all that spending he and his Democratic Congress plan on doing. It seems that $250 billion of it can come from treating health insurance benefits as wages and taxing them, so it's now "on the table."

Richard Allen Davis, whose murder of Polly Klaas brought about California's "three strikes" law, has had his death sentence upheld by the California Supreme Court. The decision was 7-0. People like Davis test my allegiance to the Constitutional dictate prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. He is a scumbag of the worst sort, and death by lethal injection isn't close to a sufficient payment for his crime. But it will have to do.

California and nine other states have passed legislation awarding in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens, and another bill is pending in California to ensure that illegal aliens can qualify for financial aid. That means that American citizens and legal residents from other U.S. states have to pay more, and illegal aliens, who can't even work once they graduate, get a special discount. And we wonder why California is having budget problems?

British historian Edward Freeman visited the United States in 1881, and upon his return from America, he wrote: "This would be a grand land if only every Irishman would kill a Negro, and be hanged for it." I wonder if anyone feels the same about pro-life extremists and late-term or partial-birth abortion doctors. I do know that I'm hearing a lot of people suggesting that people like Bill O'Reilly share in the blame for the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller. I wonder if they will feel the same way about David Duke's most outspoken critics if someone ever shoots that racist. I think we need to maintain the freedom to speak out with great passion against evil, even if it is legal, without worrying about what the fringe lunatics will do.

On Sunday, a few hours after Dr. Tiller's murder, the White House emailed a statement to reporters in which the president said: "I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning." I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see no similar reaction from the White House over the shocking and outrageous murder of an American military recruiter in Little Rock Arkansas, at the hands of an American Muslim extremist. Perhaps that theme wouldn't mesh with his current Apology Tour of the Arab world.

I Hate When That Happens

I had another one of those "publish later" posts get messed up. I'm not sure how I did it this time. Maybe I should just publish all my stuff right as I finished it.

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 233)

I've been to some pretty cool places in the past few years, but nothing was cooler, literally or figuratively, than taking a helicopter ride from Juneau to the middle of the Mendenhall Glacier. I've posted a picture or two of this sight before, but this one might be my favorite. I took this one from the helicopter as we were leaving the glacier. The visitor's center can be seen just slightly to the left of the center of this shot. When they built it, the center was located near the face of the glacier. Over the years, it has retreated, and this vantage point makes it easy to imagine where the glacier's reach used to be.

I have family hitting that visitor's center this afternoon. I wish I was there with them.