Shattered Dreams of the Quarter Finals

For a moment there, I really thought USA was going to win.  After playing a terrible first half, we finally got our act together and started to play some soccer.  That dream came tumbling down with Ghana's score in the first few mintues of overtime.  A heart-wrenching game.

Throughout the World Cup coverage they keep pushing the idea that Soccer is becoming popular in the US, and that team USA's success is sparking a new wave of fandom.

Google Trends sheds some interesting light on the situation.  Here we see the frequency of seraches and news articles for "soccer" in the United States:

And here "World Cup":

In both cases, we have very similar searching frequencies to the 2006 World Cup.  In fact, generic soccer searches are significantly below that of 2006.  Both cases, however, show significant increases in news reports.  While I really would love to see soccer become a popular sport, the claims seem to be inaccurate based on generic google searches, and are likely just an attempt by the media giants to capatlize on soccer.  Or maybe the sport was already popular just not covered by the media, and media coverage is what they deem as "popular"?

What do you think, is there a resurgence of soccer in the United States?

Personally, a couple good beers and a thrilling soccer game with some friends is about as good as it gets.  It's graceful and action packed.  It's based upon a refreshing dose of team work and communication.  The entire game flows continuously without commercials or breaks; each second of the game is important.  It may just be personal bias from having played the sport myself, but it remains one of my favorite sports to watch.  And I'm excited about tomorrow's England Vs Germany game.

Celebration of the Ordinary

I realize most of my posts on this blog are from extravagant trips and very little from my daily life. We often seem to think that it is our vacations, our experiences far away from home, that are the most meaningful. Look through anyone's photo album and you're likely to see pictures of every vacation they've taken, but very little of their daily life.

While we seem to celebrate the extraordinary, it's the mundane, simple things in life that are truly special. They define who we are as a person and how we transform the world.

As an Agnostic, I base my moral guidance on the simple conclusion that one should live their life in such a way that it is exactly as they wish to be eternally remembered. That through their actions the world is transformed to exactly what they want it to be. Every action we take, every second we exist, we transform the universe into something it couldn't have been without us. Are you being remembered exactly as you wish to be?

My last two weeks at work have primarily consisted of helping two new members on my team start off on solid footing. The learning curve for the project I work on is very extreme, and it will take 6 months before they become productive members of the team. Training and social introductions are amongst my main responsibilities these past two weeks, and I've spent a considerable amount of extra time preparing for it. I like to think that I've made their first two weeks as painless as possible and that I've set them up with everything they need to succeed.

After work, I go to the gym for an hour with a co-worker. After all, I have a several day Appalachian trail hike this fall I need to prepare for. Futurama and Mythbusters frequent the television for the first hour when I arrive home, followed with a snack, and typically some more computer work. The occasional computer game finds it's way into the mix, although I haven't played much since the Starcraft II Beta ended. I usually finish the night on the computer, exploring new realms and personal projects, such as the one mentioned in the previous post: here. That's my day in a nutshell, and I'm proud of the way it usually plays out. Surely there's room for improvement, but I'm only human.

Las Vegas

I've always been a little impulsive.  Life is uncertain, eat desert first I always say.  With that said, watching the remaining Tool tickets sell out in California drove me to a quick, crazed decision: That a Las Vegas trip was in order.  I've always wanted to go to Vegas, and after searching around, found a great deal that my wife and I couldn't pass up.  We're staying in premium pyramid rooms!

In addition to the Tool concert, we'll be seeing a Cirque Du Soleil show(complementary tickets from our hotel for booking 3+ nights), and hopefully visiting the Hoover Dam.  If you have any more suggestions for things to do, please leave a comment!

So the itinerary for the summer is filling up with an impulsive trip to Las Vegas in July in addition to Carrowinds and Chevelle in Charlotte.  A definite trip to Floyd and Roanoke in August, a week long hike on the Appalachian trail in early September, a Cruise in late September, and a Muse concert and Richmond trip in early October.  After 3 years of minimal travel, pretty much just a trip to Cancun with Lauren's parents, we have something planned every month.   It's nice to treat ourselves.

Passionately Curious

Einstein once said: "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."

These past few nights I have been plagued by an overwhelming desire to write code. It started as finishing up some code I've been working on for work. As the night's hours faded away, my thoughts strayed and imagination took over as it so often does. I started a new project (see randomprojectsandcode.blogspot.com). Excitement and anticipation take over after an idea takes shape, and I can't help but continue forging ahead with it. It is these times that I know I'm doing the right thing, that programming is where I'm meant to be. That I too am passionately curious.

Back to normal

We settled back into our daily routines after returning to Lebanon. The only difference is we seem to have a new inhabitant on our couch.

Jennifer has been staying with us since we returned from Minneapolis. Drawing on her accounting experience at Swan Leasing and her IT internship last year with Thrivent, we were able to get her an interview with CGI. I’m happy to announce she was offered a position.

I had all sorts of activities planned these last two weeks: Frisbee golf to try out my new disks I got in Minnesota, a hike at the local state park, and a motorcycle ride with friends from work. Alas, it has rained, neigh down-poured, every single day since we returned. Despite the disagreeable weather, I have added an hour long workout to my daily regiment, and hope to keep up with it.

A few more trips were planned, a Chevelle concert and Carrowinds trip to Charlotte NC, a cruise this fall in the Caribbean, and a trip to see high school friends in Roanoke. I also have been toying with the idea of seeing a Tool concert. I’m worried they’re close to their last tour, and I haven’t seen them play since high school. Unfortunately the only venues that aren’t sold out at the moment are in San Diego and Las Vegas.

Stay tuned for more adventures!

Home Sweet Home

We return home to an excited cat, very tall grass, and luckily two living trees from our Anniversary. 

Special thanks to my Aunt and Uncle for making this trip possible.  We all had a great time!  Hopefully those we visited will visit us someday and let us repay the favor.

Marina's Graduation

We finished our trip with my sister Marina's graduation in Floyd. We shared lefse I made with Anne and had a bbq afterward.

Jennifer came back with us to Lebanon. Jennifer is staying for the week, and we're hoping CGI will interview her for a functional position, similar to what she did last summer.

Chicago

Thursday night brought us to Chicago, where we stayed with my Uncle Doug. We called my Aunt and Uncle at nearly the last minute and surprised them with 4 people. They were wonderful and accommodated all of us. Both my aunt and uncle have Motorola Droids, and the first hour or two we were there was primarily composed of showing each other Droid apps and features we had discovered.

Following the droid party, we all went out for pizza in down town Wheaton.

Friday morning we went downtown and had breakfast at Lou Mitchells with my Uncle.

From Lou Mitchells we headed to the Sears/Willis tower. It loomed over the city. This one building contains more people than the entire town I live in.

We went up to the top of the tower. They have recently added a new Plexiglas room that lets you walk out onto a glass floor that floats above the city.

Standing on a completely see through floor 103 stories in the air affects us all a little differently...

After spending a little time roaming the city, we were able to catch up with a friend of ours that we met playing World of Warcraft nearly 6 years ago that lives in Chicago. Stellartouch, a night elf priest, took us to the Millenium park where we admired the giant reflective bean and had lunch.

We hit a little traffic leaving Chicago, and ended up not getting back to our house in Virginia until 4:00 AM. Saturday we'll get back in the car and drive to may parents house for my littlest sister's graduation.

Lefse

On our last day in Minneapolis we were able to relax and spend some extra time with our Aunt and Uncle and their family. It has been really wonderful getting to spend some time with them over the past week. I don't get very many opportunities to see my family since it's quite far from Virginia, so getting to know everyone a little better has been great. I just hope it wasn't too stressful having a house full of visitors for an entire week.

Anne gave me lessons on making Lefse, a traditional Norwegian desert. She also prepared some amazing ribs and rhubarb pie. I plan to share it with people in Virginia at my sister Marina's graduation next week.

Downtown Minneapolis

Tuesday we ventured to downtown Minneapolis. We started off at the sculpture garden, followed by the art museum, and then the skyways. The sculpture garden was immense, and included a giant glass carp, a square of benches with simple thoughts written on them in elegant ways, and a giant spoon and cherry.

We met up with my sister Jennifer at the park and went to a little Vietnamese place for lunch. After lunch, we made our way to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. There we saw a variety of work, including the largest piece of carved jade outside of china.

We also got to see a piece of my aunt's artwork at the museum.

After the art museum we walked downtown and toured the Minneapolis Skyways. All of the buildings downtown are connected so that you can travel anywhere downtown without going outside. This seems silly in the summer, as Minneapolis was deceivingly warm and delightful, but during the winter months it's far too cold to spend time outside.

We attempted to make it to the top of the IDS tower, the tallest building in Minneapolis, but the IDS building no longer has an observation deck at the top and they don't allow people up. Lauren and I went to the hotel that rents out a banquet hall on the 50th floor, but the hotel manager had just left and we were told we'd need to come back the next day.

After seeing the sights of downtown, we went to an Indian restaurant where we nearly killed Jennifer's boyfriend. He apparently has severe allergies to an assortment of foods that we ate at the restaurant, and he ended up finishing the night in the hospital. Hopefully he knows there are easier ways to avoid your girlfriends family then needing to leave for the hospital due to a severe allergic reaction.

MOA and The Science Museum

We explored the science museum and Mall of America on Monday.

My cousin, who volunteers at the science museum, gave us a back stage tour of the inner workings of the science museum. We saw the workshops where exhibits are prototyped and made, and toured the staff only parts of the museum. My cousin has a car he made in a highschool project that runs off of pressure in an accumulator that's stored from a little 2 horse power engine. It gets 160 miles per gallon, and goes about 30 miles an hour.

We also found some ancient bacon.

We went on to Mall of America where we shopped around, and did the backstage tour of the Aquarium.