Marcus' Caterpillar Roll

Marcus loves sushi. Today, he had a caterpillar roll for lunch. Yum!

Madison's Can Can at the Talent Show

On sickness and health

I blogged earlier about the flu making its way through my family...we'll I didn't escape it completely. Two days this week I felt pretty bad. I stayed home yesterday and just felt too bad to concentrate, but not bad enough to sleep. At about 8pm my fever returned and I just had to go to sleep.

The only problem with this is that Michelle was out shopping! So I had to tell the kids, "please go to bed" and I went to bed. I sweat like a pig all night with a fever, but when I woke up at 7am, SHAZZAAMM! I felt fine!

It's amazing how easy it is to take our health for granted. I'm reminded today of just how nice it is to be healthy. For any of you who are still down with all the bugs going around...get well soon!

The nature of good & evil through "Wicked"

Musicals have always been our favorite. We'll never forget Witches of Eastwick and Secret Garden, Urinetown, I Love You, You're Pefect, Now Change... or any of the others. But, we have a new favorite...

For Valentine's Day Michelle and I went to see Wicked at the Pantages.

Wow.

What a rich exploration of good and evil, nature/nurture and the social construction of power and truth. While I think the truths revealed in this show are timeless, they are just as relevant to our current political situation as the original Oz was to its.

Ironically, much of the perspective of this show (e.g., the corruption of power, and foolishness of the masses) is antithetical to the values of the original Oz.

If you've not seen this show yet, go do it. If you live in LA...it's showing at the Pantages for a while. Get tix at Ticketmaster or just show up at the box office at 5:30 for a daily lottery of unsold seats. If you live elsewhere, go see it in London. :-) Then, buy the soundtrack. You'll love it.

College Basketball Coaching Carousel

As mentioned earlier, my current university recently fired their Basketball coach, and hired a new one.

Yesterday, my former university fired their coach. Kelvin Sampson is apparently a good coach...if you only look at win/loss records. But if you look at a coach's responsibility to mold the character of young men and women to become persons of integrity and achievement, this guy is done.

Despite his personal record of dishonorable behavior, IU found a way to justify hiring Sampson two years ago. Perhaps this is yet another piece of evidence pointing towards the general incompetence of former IU President Adam Herbert.

Now that both of them are gone, perhaps the student athletes will grow up in a more constructive environment. One where people take responsibility for their own actions and play within the rules and without excuses. Looks like the kids took a step in the right direction today.

PS - with all this going around me you'll be glad to know that a least this guy seems to have a long-term contract with one of my alma maters.

The Kings Girls

It's been a good week at the Staples Center! Today Chun, Ronk and I went to a King's game. After the first period the Kings girls were up giving away shirts and my buddy Chun got one. Here he is posing with three of them.

The game was lame-o. It started out great with a 1-1 tie after the first period. In the first ten-minutes of the second period the Blackhawks scored 4 goals to take a 5-1 lead.

The Kings were playing so poorly that we decided to leave with 10-minutes left. However, right before we left, the Kings scored. And, as we were leaving (literally at the exit doors) they scored again (now it was 5-3 with about 7-minutes left). We talked about staying, but decided they had no chance. I just got home and saw this headline on the Yahoo!Sports..."Blackhawks escape Kings". Doh! We should have stayed!

Flu, Disease and Epidimic

When this book first came out I thought, "that looks interesting...I didn't know there was a flu epidemic..." Since then I've wanted to read it, but haven't.

Well, it just moved to the top of my list.

Last week, a good friend of Matt's at school went home with the flu. A couple days later, Matt came home with a fever and spent Wed-Sat in bed. By Sunday afternoon Michelle was in bed with a fever and aches all over. She literally did not get out of bed until Thursday! Today is the first time I've been in the office all week. I essentially quarantined her to the bedroom all week to try and keep the virus from spreading.

This thing has been travelling all around the neighborhood and the city of Malibu. Then, today I found it's even in Austin, TX. Now I'm curious to find out more about epidimiology and how this virus spreads so quickly. And why some people are able to resist it, while others (in the same household) come down with it bad.

Anyway, Michelle is better now (but still very tired) and so far no one else has any symptoms. Hopefully we're in the clear.

A new era (Part 2)

Here's a nice story from the LAT about our new coach. I'm confident this is a step in the right direction for our men's team.

Clippers Spirit

My buddy Dave scored us box seats to teh Cippers. We enjoyed watching my Wizards pull out a one-basket victory. The highlight was a visit from the Clippers Spirit at halftime. : -)

Matt's Destroyer

 
 
 
Matt started working on this enormous Lego Destroyer in January 2005 and just finished it yesterday. It's awesome!

Tiny's Third Tooth!

 

My 8-yr old finally lost another tooth. She says this is her third, but I only remember one prior. Too cute!