I step outside to empty the trash and am dumbfounded.
The sky is on fire: the clouds blaze electric pink against a pale purple field. The color is so intense that I lose my balance. I drop the trash and stare open-mouthed in awe.
The colors are unreal.
My mind, quite literally, can not comprehend what it is seeing, and my equilibrium is gone.
The long, thin wispy December clouds, the edge of a weather pattern, are lit a blazing pink, touched with white and orange and red. As I stand in the driveway between the arborvitae and the house, it seems the sky is hanging low above my head, a painted canvas. It's like science fiction art depicting a sunset on a planet far, far away.
I grab my camera from the car. Damn! It's wearing the wrong lens. I snap a photo anyhow. The photograph can not do the sky justice! I have no clear field of view for the entire sunset.
Wait! The ladder is still in the back yard -- perhaps I can climb onto the roof! No, it's not there. I loaned the ladder to Mac on Saturday.
Still, I must have a clear view.
I jump into the car and chase the sunset to the high school. I run around the baseball diamond to the soccer fields. My knee hurts, but I don't care. I must photograph the sunset!
And I do.
But the fluorescent pink has faded. The nearest clouds are a dull grey-purple, the furthest clouds a fiery red. I photograph them, but I'm just going through the motions. They're not the clouds I want to remember.
On Sunday I talked with my Aunt Virginia, a professional photographer, about the fleeting nature of certain subjects: sunsets, animals, children. She gave me some points from which to work as I strive to improve my photography. One of them: do not be afraid of wasting film. Film is the cheapest investment one can make in learning photography.
I'm going to try to take more pictures. (Maybe Mac and I can actually get together to practice, like we're always saying we'll do.)
My brother, Tony, has been in a football pool for several years now. He and twenty-nine other crazies pay about $125 per season to join. Each week they pick the winners for the NFL games (straight-up, no spread). The weekly winner gets money, as do the first-, second-, and third-place finishers at the end of the season.
I've always thought that I could do better than Tony (since he always finished near the bottom of the pool), so this year I joined. I'm doing well, hanging a couple of games out of first place, but haven't won any individual week.
Recently I've devised a truly Byzantine system for making my selections. The problem? It doesn't really seem to be working. In fact, I fell three games off the pace last week and now find myself five games behind the leader. Last week I was in third place, this week I'm in sixth.
Still, I'm not willing to abandon my system. I think it can work and just needs to be tweaked.
It goes something like this:
- For each matchup, determine the predicted outcome based on:
- Total points for and against.
- Points for and against for the past five games.
- Points for and against for the past three games.
- To the initial predicted outcome, adjust for the following modifiers:
- Home team receives +1 point.
- Favored team receives +1 point.
- If a team has significant injuries award -1 point.
- As needed, award 1 point for "intangible" advantages. For example, Atlanta currently has an eight game unbeaten streak. Bill James has shown that such streaks are far more likely to end than to continue. Thus, Tampa Bay is awarded one point for the "intangible" of Atlanta having a long unbeaten streak.
- Compile a predicted score.
- Accept those games with wide margins of predicted victory as set-in-stone, no matter how absurd it seems.
- Examine the close games carefully to determine if there's anything that might influence the outcome.
Actually, I've been tracking the system's results for several weeks and it does quite well. Last week was its first off week.
This week's predicted winners (with predicted margins of victory):
- Tampa Bay by two over Atlanta
- New England by six over Buffalo
- Cincinnati by two over Carolina
- Jacksonville by one over Cleveland (I hate this pick and may change it)
- Pittsburgh by nine over Houston
- Indianapolis by one over Tennessee
- Washington and New York Giants are even, but the edge goes to Washington
- San Francisco by one over Dallas (yes, only by one)
- Kansas City by eight over St. Louis (yes, by eight)
- Detroit by four over Arizona
- New Orleans by one over Baltimore
- Philadelphia by nine over Seattle
- New York Jets by three over Denver
- Oakland by eight over San Diego
- Green Bay by six over Minnesota
- Miami by seven over Chicago
On this day at foldedspace.org
2003 — Who is John Galt? So, why do Rush Limbaugh and the conservatives hold Ayn Rand in such low esteem? I think it's for those things that I find good about her philosophy. Her central tenet is this...