BasketBall Season has Begun!

And now that I have cable TV (on my computer, no less), I'm screwed. Actually I probably won't end up watching that much basketball, but my fantasy basketball pool is taking up a lot of my time. It's as exciting and entertaining as it has been for the past several years and I can't wait for the season to really begin. This year we have even more managers. Ten in all and all from Martingrove.

Anyway, back to the pool....err work....

Rediscovering My First Love

Yes, that's right, I'm talking about baseball.

And I'm being perfectly serious. I was raised on baseball. When I was a kid I use to throw the ball around with the neighbourhood kids all the time. I spent many summers outdoors with a baseball glove in hand. We'd play "Running Bases" or "Pitch 'n Hit". I remember that if we were able to hit the tennis ball over the house across the street it would count as a homerun. Hit it off the front part of the roof and it was a triple. Those were some happy times.

Then when I was old enough, I played in Little League. The first team I was on, I played with Vincent Shiao. He was a really good player back then and even cracked the pitching rotation that year. I few years later, I cracked the pitching rotation and pitching was something I looked forward to every week. I remember I pitched the third inning right after our ace (pitchers in little league were only allowed to pitch 2 innings) and then Omar Khan would follow me and pitch the fourth inning. Then in the later years, partly because of my lack of physical ability I started to really suck. I remember in my last year of play, I only got a few hits for the whole season. My fielding was a little suspect too. At that point, I was facing pitchers would could pitch at around 70 mph. That was actually kinda scary. When you've experienced it, you'll know that hitting is one of the toughest skills to learn in sports.

During this time, the Blue Jays won two World Series in a row. I was glued to the TV during those playoff years. I hated those Oakland A's and the Bash Brothers (McGwire & Canseco) with a passion. I vividly remember staying up late for the World Series and watching Atlanta's Otis Nixon try to bunt his way to first, but Joe Carter was there to receive the throw at first. I was jumping up and down with joy mimicking Joe Carter on television.

The following year, I was at a Bar Miztvah for Game 6 of the World Series against the Phillies. People had brought portable TVs and all the people at the Bar Mitzvah's were crowding around these very popular people. When Joe Carter hit that homerun off of Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, I was the first to jump up and cheer. When it was time to leave, I remember the car ride back was full of exuberant cheering and honking with total strangers. Even my dad, who I spent and still spend countless hours talking about sports, honked the horn in celebration.

I remember watching those Blue Jay teams as if it were yesterday. Guys like Jack Morris, Dave Stewart, Juan Guzman, David Cone, Jimmy Key, Duane Ward, John Olerud, Ricky Henderson, Dave Winfield, Paul Moliter, Kelly Gruber (I used to have a glove with his name on it...what crap), Devon White, Pat Borders, Ed Sprague, Joe Carter and my hero, Roberto Alomar. In those days, everyone wanted to be Roberto Alomar. He, with the patented running to right, snaring a grounder, jumping and throwing it in mid-air across his body to first. Everyone tried to imitate that. Baseball was so pure and innocent. I remember going to the Blue Jay parade that year high fiving and cheering on my beloved Blue Jays.

It didn't get any better than winning the World Championship in consecutive years. When you're young, you tend to believe that things like Championships will keep on coming. At the time, I didn't know what the term "loss of innocence" meant. But in retrospect, immediately after the Championship '93 season was my loss of innocence. That season the Jays weren't doing very well even though their lineup was pretty much intact from the previous year. And then the baseball strike happened. What the f*ck was that? A young kid like myself didn't really understand the strike, but what I did know was that a potential Montreal Expo / Blue Jay World Series was not to be. The players wouldn't play baseball because they weren't getting paid enough? F*ck that. Why wouldn't my heroes take the field?

My interest in baseball took a nosedive after that year. And then the final straw. The infamous Roberto Alomar spitting incident. That was an ugly, ugly incident I wish I had never experienced. I say experience, because it hurt. The lesson that all humans are fallible is a tough one to learn. As a youngster, when you have a hero, you are also vulnerable. I had put Alomar upon a pedestal that I had so carefully and dearly constructed, but in an instant, it was utterly and completely destroyed. There was nothing left to look up to; in my eyes, a hero had taken a great fall. Perhaps events like this is why I hesitate to attach myself religiously to a sports team/player. Once you commit, an emotional rollercoaster ride inevitably follows. I suppose part of that hesitation to commitment is rooted in a fear of taking that fall once again.

A few years later, I began to take interest in baseball again when Sosa and McGwire were chasing the homerun record. That was a banner year for baseball, and I warmed up to the sport a little bit. I watched the Arizona-Yankee World series, where the Yankees hit TWO ninth inning homeruns off of BK (Byung-Hyun Kim) to win games 5 and 6. But in the end, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnsono proved to be too much. And then this year, I haven't been able to tear myself away from watching the baseball playoffs. I really liked the Marlins team, and I - unlike most people - wasn't sad that they beat the Cubs. But that's a blog for another day. Right now, I'm too busy watching the World Series :)

Wednesday
The Renaissance

We stayed in Italy for another day and visited a site just down the coast. We chose the tour that would take us to Florence and to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This might sound weird, but I'm a fan of the Renaissance. Europe was coming out the Dark Ages and embracing science, logic and human knowledge. And of course, Florence, Italy was at the very center of this revolution.

So after driving into the city on the bus, we were dropped off at yet another plaza. From there it was a short walk to the Florence Cathedral. I've never really heard about the Florence cathedral, but upon seeing it, i recognized it as a Puzz3D puzzle that I had completed in the past. I was a little weird seeing the actual thing in real life; the largest difference being the size. When I did the puzz3D, there was no relative scale I could compare it with. When I was there in person, the scale is obvious just from the amount my neck had to strain to look at it.


Ferrari Worship

The Florence cathedral has a unique green coloured marble doesn't really show up in the pictures. This green coloured is visually arresting to the eye and something that I was not expecting. I didn't really get any wide angle shots of the cathedral, because it was too big and I couldn't get far enough away to take an unobstructed shot.


This is the widest angle of the cathedral I have.

Just like all the previous sites I visited, this site was very crowded. Right across the cathedral, there was a decorative gold door. The one there right now is a replica, but judging from the replica, the ancients knew the meaning of Bling.


The door is actually depicting a story. I've forgotten exactly what story, but the detail is amazingly intricate

The cathedral itself had a whole bunch of statues embedded into the surface. The tour guide was saying that Italian masters had worked on them; masters such as Raphael and Donatello.


(Hmmmm...how'd they have time to do this AND fight off Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady?)

After spending about 20 minutes here, it was off to the next tourist trap. European cities have a lot of winding narrow alleys that really add something to the atmosphere, as opposed to being scary and intimidating places as they are here.


Not exactly sure what those arches are for, but they make for an interesting picture

We eventually reached a wide open square. This was the main square of the town, which is also where the ancient Town Hall was located. This square was littered with a whole variety of statues. Near the center was one of the head of the Medici clan (who of course was the patron of Florence arts).


Looking regal on his horse

And perhaps the famous statue was in this square: The Statue of David. I saw was, because the one in the square is actually a replica. The real one is in the Accademia di Belle Arti. (I looked that up on Google)


One of Michelangelo's masterpieces

Next stop was the The Ponte Vecchio bridge. In the far past, people used to live on this bridge. It used to be dominated by butchers, but now it is lined with jewellers.


When you're walking on this bridge, it seems as if you are walking along a regular street. There are buildings on both sides of this bridge.

This is one of the views of another bridge while on the Ponte Vecchio bridge:


Such a nice clear day. You can clearly see the reflection of the other bridge in the water.

The next stop of this whirlwind tour of Florence was the Santa Croce Cathedral. It is the burial place of dozens of famous Italians including Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, Marconi, Rossini and Michelangelo.

Here I am in front of the burial place of one my heroes, Galileo Galilei. It's ironic that he ended up being buried in a church, since he was excommunicated. I haven't actually read too many books on Galileo's life, but I remember reading Bertolt Brecht's play about him in Gr 12 English, which is obviously not completely historical, but the major events are true.


I don't think you're actually suppose to take pictures in here, but I really wanted this picture.

Italy is famous for it's ice cream. I should have taken a picture of ice cream displays. But I do have a picture of me eating my ice cream. Italian ice cream is very creamy and it appears to be whipped before it is served. Yum.


Behind me is the Santa Croce Cathedral

The last thing we did before leaving Florence was go to a lookout point. I finally got a wide shot of the Florence Cathedral. When this was built, the dome was the largest in the world. They actually built two domes, the one beneath it for support. There are actually really strong supporting beams that hold up this incredibly heavy weight. It was an engineering marvel at the time.


The tallest point in the city is the Cathedral's dome

I actually ran to the other side of the lookout point area to get a picture of the other side of the city. I'm glad I did, because I got some pretty good pictures.


Beyond Picturesque

From the lookout point, it was obvious that there were absolutely no high rises. The tallest building in the whole city was the cathedral. The lack of tall buildings seemed quite common in a lot of European cities. I sort of understand why people come to New York to look at all the high rises now.

Having been in Europe for quite a while, I noticed the cars that they were driving. Most of the people in Europe drove small compact cars or small motorbikes. Thankfully, SUVs were a very uncommon sight. There were many VW Beetles, Minis and Smart cars. Smart cars were designed by Swatch and built by BMW to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Europe has had more time to mature than North America. They have used up a lot of their land, and perhaps as a partial byproduct, they have very compact cities. One of the results of not having enough space has been people driving smaller cars, to reduce pollution and resources. It's unfortunate that we haven't done a better job of planning our cities and conserving our environment, because one day in the future, we will regret our wasteful ways. It's pretty sad that North America is moving in the complete opposite direction. I like how the title of the article is "BAD SPORTS Or: how we learned to stop worrying and love the SUV". (A reference to Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love tbe Bomb".) Throughout Europe, sights such as this one is common:


Reducing Pollution

As you can probably tell, I'm not a big fan of the SUV. It's a lifestyle issue in North America that is the crux of the problem. Check out this information about urban sprawl. I even heard Hazel McCallion say on the radio that her city was not planned very well. In the suburbs, you are forced to use a car to get anywhere. One of the best points that the David Suzuki foundation report makes is the virtues of compact communities. This will encourage people to walk and use public transit. And once again the problem is demand. People want big houses so land developers build them. It's a problem that takes more than instituting laws and fines; it's a problem that requires a change of mindset.

The next stop was Pisa. Apparantly Pisa is a nice little town to visit, but we went straight to the main attraction: The Leaning Tower of Pisa.


Right behind me is a big tourist mall, with hundreds of vendors hawking their wares


I liked this perspective picture of the the tower

A very popular thing to do is to take a picture of yourself trying to prop up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I opted for destruction instead:


My Godzilla Moment

The only other interesting thing that happened here was that some of the people in our tourist group got lost. We were waiting at our predetermined waiting area and had been waiting for at least half an hour. Then I decided to go look for them, so I asked the tour guide for our group number sign and took off. So I went searching for them, looking a little foolish since I was carrying and holding up the sign. I found them eventually and brought them back. They (A mom and her two daughters) had gotten lost and had no idea how to get back to the meeting area. So we got back on the bus and made it back to the ship in time.

On the way back we passed by an American military base. Apparantly this was the largest base outside US borders. I couldn't get any good pictures because the trees lining the street kept on getting in the way.


It's tough taking pictures from a bus

That was it for the day. Once again by the time we got back to the ship, it was time for dinner.

Dinner Time:


Appetizer: Shrimp Cocktail(9/10) Frozen and a little small, but still good

Appetizer II: Gourmet Pizza (9/10)Pretty much all the appetizers were really good, the pizza was no exception


Salad (7/10)You had the option of eating a different type of salad everday. On the menu they make it sound pretty fancy, but overall they were underwhelming


Main Course I: Pork on a Stick (9/10)I made that name up, but that's what the dish on the left was about. It was good.

Main Course II: Fried Chicken (8/10) You can't really go wrong with fried food. Healthy no, Yummy yes.


Spaghetti They had a different theme each day depending on your port of call. Today was Italian, so my sister decided to try the Spaghetti and see how fancy they could present it. Apparantly there is not much you can do with spaghetti to ritz it up.


Dessert: Chocolate Mousse Cake w/ a side of vanilla ice cream(8/10) Once again the vanilla ice cream was icey, but the cake was alright. I'm not a really big fan of dessert and i think this was the second time I had ordered any at all.

Right around dinner time, the waiters did some singing. It's a little strange having the wait staff sing to you, but I guess that's part of the "charm" that is part of taking a Cruise.

For the previous few nights they had been hyping up a singer named Tony Jo that was coming on board to perform. She was suppose to perform the previous night, but somehow her luggage got misplaced and it didn't arrive on the boat. She was a Diana Krall type singer that sang some popular and familiar songs. She was actually OK. I felt a little sorry for her, because the audience wasn't very enthusiastic. Personally, I didn't fall asleep and my martini helped with that.

They had some after dinner activities every night. One night they held a deck party with the caribbean band. Other nights they had a music game show. The next night they had a movie game show. I really sucked at them, but they were entertaining. I found myself going to bed relatively early because I was exhausted. By the time I woke up the next day, we would be in France/Monaco.

A wise man (named Lester) once said:

"Procrastination is like Masturbation.... It may seem like fun at first, but in the end you're only f*cking yourself".

Sorry, hope that didn't offend anyone... Jokes! Good luck with everything, Mike!

Manna from Heaven

OMSAS has extended the med app deadline till Oct 20!!! THANK THE LORD!!!!

DO NOT PROCRASINATE
It's 4:17 in the morning and the OMSAS website is still sooooo slow. A word of advice to anyone who's applying to Law school, do it early! I should be keeling over from lack of sleep, but I think my fear of not getting my applications in on time is keeping me relatively awake. Man this blows.

I always thought I was fairly organized when it came to keeping track of things but doing these applications really have shown me that I suck. The only med app I was able to get in without staying up late was UBC's. I've got to mail Manitoba's tomorrow by courier, I'm staying up late for Ontario's and hopefully I'll squeak in fine, and I'm forgetting about PEI. I would've missed grad school applications if it weren't for Tim, though there's a good chance I might already be late for OGS.... man what the heck!