Did you know that you can’t tickle yourself?

Much to the dismay of wacky masochists everywhere, the human brain is wired against self-tickling. Because the brain controls movement, it knows what your hand is going to do before you do it. Thus it anticipates the exact force, location, and speed of the tickle and uses that information to desensitize you to your own roving hands.  Mental Floss

In other words, You Are Your Brain.  This is a good thing when it comes to fingers under the chin and squeezed knees.  It is not a good thing, I think, when it comes to creativity.  Creativity is odd in that it is equal parts prompting, practice and impromptu.  For it to be authentic it has to derive from the deepest parts of your brain while connecting to the world outside your skin.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately.  Partly because of the book that I am reading.  Party because of the book that has been knocking around my head for a couple of years.  Partly because I don’t know why… it just has.

Unfortunately, I am spending too much time thinking and not enough time doing.  I need to find a way to bypass that self-tickling mechanism, tricking my brain out of thoughts and into actions.

I am hoping that I can somehow turn this blog into one of those tickling fingers.

“Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful…” –Wonderful  by Jason Mraz

Sometimes life is as good as you would always hope it would be.  I have had a few days in a row like that.

On Friday, Megan and I went to Spokane to see our third Jason Mraz concert.  As always, Mr. A to Z delivered a show that was high energy, funny and so sing-a-long-y that my throat was sore by the end of the night.  Add all of this to the fact that we were sitting in the second row and I’ll put this concert experience right up there with seeing Springsteen from the sixth row when he was touring the Ghost of Tom Joad album.

A few highlights:

• The second song of the night was Clockwatching, off of the Mr. A-Z album.  I have to admit that I didn’t give this song, or whole album, really, the credit that it deserves.  When I picked up our tickets a couple of months ago I went back and listened to A to Z and enjoyed it more than I remember.  This song particularly has some of the cleverness that I really appreciate in Jason’s music: 

I’m off like an aeroplane
I’m licking your postage stamp again
I’m using my right brain and I’m praying that we don’t crash
Who knew I’d come so fast?
So what if a two pump chump can’t last
But I made it to three and I foreclosed a five-minute fantasy
On a short lived flight making love on economy 

• Peg by Steely Dan is a great song and one that will get stuck in your head if you aren’t careful.
• At one point in the show, Jason asked the audience if anyone had some chap stick that he could borrow.  A girl a few seats down from us obliged and Jason returned the Burt’s Bee’s Wax to her when he was done.  Every girl in the place swooned.
• I’m not much of a dancer but even I stood and clapped and danced during Dynamo of Volition, especially during the “give me the low dough” part.
• Butterfly, Jason’s tribute to strippers, or “shoe models” as he has been known to call them, closed the show out.

I have written about how super’tastic I think Mr. Mraz is in the past and I will continue to say it again and again.

The following morning, which came way too early after getting back to Pullman at 1 o’clock in the morning, was Cougar football and a basketball scrimmage by the New Look Cougar Men’s Team.  My quick scouting report, player by player:

• #0 Marcus Capers: This young player out of Florida looks ready to back up Taylor Rochestie right now.  He always played the team opposite of Taylor (they ran three 10-minutes scrimmages) and while he wasn’t particularly aggressive on the offensive end, he handled the ball and played tough man-to-man defense.  Long arms and court vision.
• #1 Klay Thompson:  Looks like the son of former NBA’er Mikael Thompson will be our starting shooting guard, at least early in the season.  He dropped a shot or two but what was impressive was how willing he was to put shots up.  Derrick Low was the same way last season, a shooter who can catch fire in the flow of a game.
• #3 Mike Harthun:  A shooter out of Medford, OR.  And he shot the ball well, sinking a couple from deep.  But looking at this roster I’m not sure that he’s going to see the court this year.
• #4 Nik Koprivica:  Someone tell Nik that Derrick Low wants his haircut back.  Playing for the first time in over a year without a knee brace, Koprivica looks once again to be a slasher on the offensive end and a stron on-ball defender on the other side of the court.  He reminds you of Kyle Weaver last year, I’m just not sure he has the intangibles that Weave had.
• #5 Abe Lodwick:  I rode an elevator with this kid last spring in Palo Alto so you could sat that we’re close.  He sunk three from behind the (now extended) arc and will be a spark off the bench.
• #10 Taylor Rochestie:  Will be First Team All Pac-10 this season.  There, I said it.
• #11 Aron Baynes:  The big Australian doesn’t look as big as he did last season and that’s a good thing. A trimmed down Baynes, as long as he can stay out of foul trouble, will be the barometer of our success as a team this year.
• #14 James Watson:  I’m not sure if this true freshman is going to see the court this year but I wouldn’t be surprised if he does.  Probably the most athletic player I saw all day, he impresses especially at the defensive end and on the glass.  And if you know Bennett Ball then you know that these are two skills that cannot be understated.
• #23 DeAngelo Casto:  This year’s wildcard.  Casto has a muddy background coming out of Spokane (almost didn’t qualify academically) and looks like his game can get a bit shaken when things don’t go his way.  There were a couple of times that veterans, and the more mature freshmen, had to put their arm around him to calm him down a bit, but the upside on this kid is WAY up there.  On both ends of the floor Casto has the potential to be a game changer.  Thompson might have been more highly touted than Casto but don’t be surprised when this in-state player is the best Cougar at Washington State in a couple of years.
• #32 Daven Harmeling:  Do you remember when Harmeling was the Pac 10 Player of The Week, twice, two seasons ago?  Pencil him in as a starter right now but I won’t be surprised to see him sink back to the bench as a sixth man type of player.  And this isn’t a bad thing.  A veteran off the bench, who can shoot and defend, might be what this team needs once we hit conference play.
• #52 Caleb Forrest:  Forrest has maybe two moves on the offensive end and is a little slow on defense.  Not to say that he is a horrible player, he will definitely see some playing time, at least early in the season, but he’s well short of spectacular.  On a team full of youth you’ve got to think that Forrest’s real value will come on the practice court teaching the younger players the proper way to play Cougar basketball.

After the basketball scrimmage my brother and I went to the football game.  I have no desire to break down game film or rate the players but I will say a couple of things.  Yes, we scored 28 points, but we also gave up nearly 60.  Defensively, something has to be done.  I don’t know if it is a matter of our players being out classed (which we are, particularly on the defensive line) or needing a new scheme but expect some type of shake up come spring camp and next season.

And, two, finally some effing effort by our players.  You could see it in their body language that this game mattered to the guys on the field.  For the first time this season, Cougar pride was alive at Martin Stadium.

Like I said, a pretty good weekend.  Cap all of this off with taking Monday off and a Tuesday holiday and I have not a thing to complain about.  Hope you are all doing as well.

John McCain.

Crazy, right?  I seem like a normal, level headed, thirty-two year old man with a wife, kids, job and mortgage.  And it seems like all the other normal, level headed, etceteras that I know are in the booth punching the card for Obama.  I get it; I really do.  But he’s just not the candidate for me.  I’ve grown up believing, and my beliefs have been strengthened by my experiences, in what the Grand Old Party stands for.

Why did I wait until the day of the election to announce my party affiliation (as if anyone cares)?  Because I didn’t need anyone evangelizing or testifying or trying to convert me to Obama’s side.  Odd that I put it in religious terms?  Not really.  The Obama campaign, for many of his supporters, seems to have taken on an almost religious verve.  Which is great if you fall on that side of the aisle.  I’m happy that you have found someone that you can support so enthusiastically.  But he’s just not for me.

No matter who wins, there are difficult decisions to be made.  I just hope that our next President, as well as state and local officials, are apt at making good ones.

For her birthday, Megan’s dad got her Wii Fit for our Nintendo Wii.  For those of you uninitiated into the cult-of-Wii, Wii Fit is a game that tests and improves your strength, balance and cardio through the use of a platform that you stand on.  I know, sounds idiotic, but in reality it does what it says it will do and is fun as hell.

We set up our Miis this morning (the avatar of yourself that lives in your virtual Wii world) and played a few games.  My favorite, more than heading soccer balls and having hula hoops tossed at me by a virtual Chuck Norris, had to be the step game.  A cross between step aerobics and Dance Dance Revolution, I was moving and grooving like I haven’t done in front of a small crowd since, well, maybe ever.

I’m going to try to stick with Wii fit to see if it can’t healthy me up a little before the holidays come in and kick all of our asses.  And this is why Wii Fit is such a brilliant idea: it makes exercise a little fun for lazy guys like myself.

But Wii Fit wasn’t the only game in town last night.  Grandpa Dan also picked up a copy of the Wii version of Mario Kart.  A classic, old-school Nintendo game updated for the motion sensing controls on the Wii.  We have two steering wheels and Simon, Dan and I were up past 11 o’clock last night playing.

This adds two more games to our Wii system and I really want to emphasise the word ‘our’ because it is rare that the Wii gets fired up without two, or all three of us, ready to play.  For a family, it’s great fun.

Simon and I at Wall Drug, somewhere in a Dakota

Who knew that a seven year old could get humor?  Case in point, yesterday Simon sent me the following email:

I got my check from the Fair. i got $1.20. It is bush leeg!

As a dad, I couldn’t be prouder.

I have never seen the student section so empty fifteen minutes before kickoff at Martin Stadium

But I can’t remember us ever sinking this low.

There’s something personal about being a fan; something that is bigger than yourself.  It’s not just me and the team that I am referring to when I write “I can’t remember us ever sinking this low.”  It’s all the fans who sat through the beating dished out by the Trojans yesterday at Martin Stadium.  It’s all the fans who listened to Bob Robertson on the radio and the fans who read about it in newspapers and blogs the next morning.

We, the team and the fans, have hit bottom.  There is no better demonstration than this than the empty student section just minutes before the game along with the apathetic play on the field and the unbelievable pathetic play calling by the coaching staff.

But these are easy observations to write about.  I’m going to put on my Yellow Hat to try to come up with positive, supportive observations a day remove from our worst ever loss:

• The whole “longest win streak in the country” monkey is finally off our back.  It is sort of a bogus stat anyway because to say that we have been consistently competitive since 1981 is complete bullshit.  With that pressure gone, the team can start looking forward instead of backward.
• Next week is a bye week.  Think of this loss in the terms of getting too drunk.  The next morning, you’ve all said it, declaring “I will never drink again.”  You did drink again, and even drank way too much again, what you needed was some time to recuperate.  Sure it hurt like hell.  A drunk like this, or a loss like this, just take a little extra time to get over.  The bye week provides that.
• We’ve played four of the five top teams in the Pac 10. Only Arizona, at home on November 8th, remains.  You can also throw in Arizona State as one of the better teams of the Pac 10 that are left on our schedule, but other than that we’re matching up with teams that we might be able to compete with.
• The rose is off the bloom for Coach Wulff and his staff.  If Wulff is the coach and motivator that Jim Sterk thought he was getting maybe yesterday’s shit can somehow be turned into tomorrow’s fertilizer.

My clean desk

But there isn’t a better way to start a Monday than coming back to an orderly office.

I wish I was a little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good
I would call her

“I Wish” by Skee-Lo

I do wish I was a better blogger.

I haven’t written here for months and, really, there’s no good excuse for it.  Sure, my life isn’t especially interesting but it isn’t completely boring either.  I’m lazy, I guess, and that’s the only excuse I have.

A quick sidebar on the above Skee-Lo lyrics… My freshman year in college, me and my suite mates had the CD single of this song which included no less than six versions of this forgettable rap classic.  We’d put it on before going out on the weekend.  That and the soundtrack from Rocky.

Back to the regularly scheduled blog…

Last weekend, Megan and I took Simon and Owen to a pumpkin patch outside of Colton.  In addition to pumpkins, which were overpriced, my culinary hero Smokin’ Papa was there.  In fact, Smokin’ Papa was so popular that they ran out of food, served from their red trailer, before I could get my order.  No matter, I substituted my grilled sausage with a pulled pork sandwich and suffered through deliciousness.

Simon (7) and Owen (16 mos) at the pumpkin patch

The boys had a great time.  Simon enjoyed walking through the crafts and playing at a table full of peas or lentils or something else harvested.  Owen enjoyed wandering around the grounds.  Both boys had fun on the hay ride to the pumpkin patch.

It was an interesting Saturday.  Not only did we venture out to the pumpkin patch but Simon had a soccer game and I had breakfast with a buddy I hadn’t seen for five or six years.

The soccer game went great.  Simon is really improving and his team is much better than the one he was on last year.  What impresses me the most about Simon’s game is how well he dribbles the ball and how aggressively he can play defense.  Yes, there are occasional lapses in concentration but cut the kid some slack, he’s seven.

Simon playing soccer.

After the game I had breakfast with Geoff and his dad, Bob.  We met at Old European while they were on a break from hunting deer.  Geoff showed me some pictures of his little girl and said that there might be another one on the way (they were going to find out on Tuesday).  

Visiting with friends from a lifetime ago, and finding out that your new lives aren’t so different from each other, is always sort of surreal.  It makes you laugh a little bit about the person you used to be and proud of the person that you, and your friend, have become.

Either twitter user Jmcoon is a brillaint hoax of 14 year old teen angst or… actually, who cares.  This is fantastic.  Let me share a few of his tweets:

• Im so out of the h***hole called school…. LOL
• I’m going to Laugh at this town some day
• OMG i want out of this school … This town and school is full of wight trash …
• I could not get asleep last night ….. not doing to grate today

Tags: awesone, internet

Megan was out of town this week on a retreat for her work.  It was a long few days I filled with painting our front living room and bedroom, which was the hard part.  But it was also a nice few days I got to spend with Simon, who absolutely cracked me up with the way he sees the world.  Here are some of the things he said to me:

• ME: You put the white stuff on the walls before you paint; SIMON: It’s called primer.
• “Math’s my thing!”
• “Did you even FINISH school?!?”
• “Dad, can you roll down the window?  I’m sort of out of breath.”
• “Dad, does a brain have a brain?”