Late Already

Well, it only took me two days of school to be late. Everyone got up at the usual time on Tuesday (around 7am) and things seemed to be proceeding well, but I was in no particular hurry to do anything. I put on my clothes at a leisurely pace (no clothing races for me today), I lingered over breakfast and got distracted by all the interesting comings and goings around me. In the end, I got to school 3 minutes late. While I come home with a positive attitude, the thought of starting each new day at my new school makes me very nervous and I'd rather put it off as long as I can.

Daddy said I had

A bad case of the slows

(An aside from Daddy: The quote "a bad case of the slows" is actually due to Abraham Lincoln who used it to describe General George H. Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga.)

(A double aside: I understand that Gen. Thomas was my great grandfather's favorite general in the Civil War, at least according to Daddy.)

First Day of Kindergarten

Monday was my first day of kindergarten. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing and didn't sleep well the night before. I asked what would happen if I fell asleep during class. Since the first day only lasted a little more than an hour, Daddy and Mommy didn't think this was very likely to happen. The first day of school was pretty fun and, best of all, I got a bunch of gifts for surviving the first day. One of the absolute best gifts was a Chick Hicks from the movie Cars (my favorite movie and, in my opinion, the best movie of all time). Chick is the mean car who crashes into the other race cars on purpose while trying to win the Piston Cup. Apparently, Disney/Pixar underestimated the demand for this bad guy car, so Chick has been a hard item to find. I am very happy to finally own Chick so that I can punish him again and again for the bad things he did to The King and Lightning in the movie.

Airplane Contest

One of the big highlights of the Smithsonian Air & Space museum is the paper airplane flying contest. It was this contest that inspired my many flights of airplanes with Daddy, Mommy and Felix. (In fact, while we were in DC, we had another flying contest from Felix balcony on the 4th floor of a building, Mommy set a new distance record by flying more than a block in the air.)

Anyway, in the Smithsonian contest, you have to fly your airplane through a small hoop. The person who does this the most times without missing wins the price (which is a plastic helicopter thing). I've competed in this even a ton of times without ever winning. Well, that all changed the Sunday before we left to go back to CA. It was early in the morning when Daddy and I arrived at the air & space. Nobody was at the contest area, so I though I would win by default. Eventually, a mommy with two Japanese children (a 3 year old girl and a 5-6 year old boy) arrived. The battle was on. I knew all the patter from the leader of the contest. In fact, she said I might as well get up and explain everything to the others. First trial through the ring---I made it. so did the boy. The girly had no clue how to hold a plane or in what direction to throw so she was eliminated. Second trial--I made it again---this tied my personal best record of two in a row. So did the Japanese boy. Third trial---I made it again---a new personal best. The Japanese boy missed! I won the prize.

Round Rainbow

While I don't like any kind of art with recognizable people in it, I do like more abstract things. One of my favorite pieces while visiting DC was Olafur Eliasson's Round Rainbow at the Hirschhorn. The installation consists of a clear torus that slowly rotates while a spotlight projects onto it. The torus reflects the light in various ways to produce a pattern of rainbows as well as cardioids and other shapes. I found this absolutely fascinating.

Let's go Phillies

I thought I would write to you about some of the highlights of our recent trip to DC. The first is about (what else) baseball. Daddy, Felix, and I attended a game where the Phillies took on the Washington Nationals. Part of the fun was getting there, we took a metro train and there were a zillion stops between our hotel and RFK Stadium. We went in and sat in the second tier of seats (sheltered by the vast overhang of the upper deck). It's a huge stadium---much larger than Oakland---so there were a fair number of empty seats. At first, I wasn't sure who to root for. Normally, I pick by color but both the Nats and the Phillies wear red and white. I decided to root for whoever took the lead first, which was the Phillies thanks to a 2 run HR from their catcher. At that point, I swung into action. I started a cheer:

Let's go Phillies! (Clap clap clap-clap-clap)
Let's go Phillies! (Clap clap clap-clap-clap)

Happily, other people in the stands took the cheer up and soon lots of people sitting near us were cheering for the Phillies. This made things lots of fun since everyone seemed to be rooting for the Phillies.

The Phils built a 4-0 lead into the 8th inning when Tom Gordon came to the mound. Unfortunately, he gave up two solo HRs and put a bunch of guys on. Things looked despareate for the Phils. In fact, I was so concerned that I asked Daddy and Felix to leave. But we stayed and the Phils escaped the 8th up 4-2. They closed it out in the 9th for the win.

It wasn't as fun as seeing the A's, but it was still a fun ballgame.

Who is the lefty?

Answer: Barry Zito.