danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

I’m sorry for the Rays, but the Phillies just played better baseball.  There’s no shame in being American League champs.

Filed under: Current Events, Sports on October 29th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

The miserable Philadelphia weather gave the Rays a lucky break on Monday night.  Tonight they began the conclusion of game four in the bottom of the sixth inning, and had a great opportunity to shut the Phillies down and force the series back to St. Pete.  But, again, the Rays are playing like rookies.  That dropped fly ball should have been caught.  Then, Peña’s lousy throw to second cost the Rays a stolen base.  I’m not saying I could do better, but I know the Rays can.  Why don’t they?

Filed under: Current Events, Sports on October 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

If the Rays lose the World Series tonight–and they probably will–it will be because they have been playing like a team completely unworthy of being there.  I hate to say that.  But Peña just lead off the second inning by trying to bunt his way on, and the ball went right to the Phillies’ first baseman.  Meanwhile, Kazmir just gave up two runs to Philadelphia in a 15 minute first inning in which be walked and hit batters, and gave up extra base hits.  Joe Madden’s unwillingness to pull pitchers who are obviously shaken and doomed to throw the game away is probably going to cost the Rays another game.

On another note, it’s 42 degrees in Philadelphia right now.  That’s cold for baseball.

Filed under: Current Events, Meteorology, Sports on October 27th, 2008 | No Comments »

Friday was a holiday in Gainesville.  Most of the city gets Homecoming off, even elementary school children.  The Gainesville Roller Rebels were participating in this year’s parade, so I got up early and drove in the rain to the severely parking-restricted University of Florida campus.  There is apparently a rule about parade participants arriving by 8:30AM.  Since the parade doesn’t begin until noon, that’s a pretty long time to be standing around…in the rain!  We realized that one of us could have shown up at 8:30 to check in, and the rest of us could have slept until ten o’clock.  I think that’ll be the plan next year.  But the GRR girls are great, and the Wendy’s at the Reitz Union was (surprisingly) open, so I had a Frosty and chatted it up with the team.

It was neat to see the way the Homecoming parade is put together, having only seen it from the sidewalk in years past.  All the floats and marchers line up in the O’Connell Center parking lot, or on North-South Drive in front of the stadium, and then, one by one, each contingent makes their way out onto University Avenue and walks east down to Main Street, turns south, and heads back down SW 2nd Avenue. The whole route (on skates for the girls, on foot for me) took less than a half hour.  In spite of the rain, there were still thousands of people sitting on the curb of either side of the street, on lawnchairs on the sidewalk, on the low brick wall in front of campus, at tables in front of restaurants, and even from windows of the Seagle Building.  It was delightful.

The sad part about marching in a parade is that you don’t really see the parade.  I was sad to miss the Pride of the Sunshine.  But a couple positions behind us was an old Studebaker truck, on the back of which was a brass contraption which proclaimed it to be the “world’s largest calliope”.  I cannot verify that claim, but it certainly made a glorious noise!

When we got downtown we ate together at Big Lou’s, then Karla and Ryan drove us back to our cars.  This was my first parade, and it was a delight.  And it was fun to see Patsy Clothesline and Ms. Rebel in their costumes.

Filed under: Friends, Gainesville, Sports on October 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

I’ve been using the lowly D70 for years, and, as a part-time professional, I am well aware of its limitations.  Had I not bought the flagship F5 just before digital caught fire, I’d have surely bought one of the top-of-the-line digital bodies.  Alas.

Tonight I read about the new Nikon D90.  Blimey! it looks spectacular!  The most appealing thing to me is that this is the first Nikon SLR that shoots video–720p high definition–and it supports geo-tagging, which is something I have longed for since I began using Flickr.

Christmas is coming!

UPDATE: So, it turns out that the video mode doesn’t allow autofocus.  That makes sense, since the mirror would be locked up during video.  Less than ideal, but still, a step up.

Filed under: Photography, Technology on October 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »