Although i'm not the biggest baseball fan, i do appreciate going to the park and taking in a game every now and then. Going to meetings around the U.S. gives me chances to see stadiums throughout the country, providing some semblance of value to even the lousiest of conferences. Here in Houston, my hotel is only eight blocks or so from Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros. While it's not the Astrodome of days of yore, the fact that the 'Stros were in town encouraged me to buy a ticket. I splurged a bit and got a seat directly behind home plate, only 15 rows back. Again, while not the Astrodome, Minute Maid is an interesting park despite the crummy name. A retractable roof and air conditioning protects fans from humid summer Houston days and nights, while a huge bank of windows looks out on downtown. For some reason, an old-style train runs on a track above the bleachers, puffing along its course whenever an Astro hits a homer. The game i saw pitted the home team against the Cincinnati Reds. I got a sweet photo of Houston pitcher Wandy Rodriguez delivering to Ken Griffey Jr. from my seat. Foul balls that went straight up and back ended up in our section, and i came within inches of grabbing one. It came down two rows behind me, however the woman making a play on it spilled the ball into the empty row between us. I went to grab it, but the spin on the ball took it away from me and back to the woman. It's been a dream of mine since i was a kid to snare a foul ball ... not the most original dream, but hey, i'm a nostalgic sucker ... perhaps this is what keeps me going to games. So close. The Reds built up an 8-1 lead behind a series of home runs from Adam Dunn (2!), Griffey, and Edinson Encarnacion. The Stros made it interesting late to get within 3, but an insurance run in the 9th from Cincinnati sealed the deal. Rodriguez has to shoulder most of the blame, he got rocked. I left satisfied with my night out, happy to have run into Stanford pals Rodney and Yelin. I didn't find a cap worth buying, but no matter.

I didn't shave for 4 or 5 days prior to coming to Texas, and after getting to my meeting the usual temptation to grow a beard took hold. This is about the farthest i've ever gone, and it actually looks somewhat like your garden variety beard. I'm sure it will be shaved off in the next week or so (if not sooner), but it's an amusing diversion.

I haven't yet written about my latest gadget purchase. After learning that i could charge an iPhone, and more importantly the monthly charges, to my Stanford enrichment account as a business expense, i was sold on picking up the new 3G as soon as possible. I planned on stopping by the Apple Store at 7am on launch day (an hour early should work, right?), but a 7:30 seminar at Stanford thwarted those plans. I then resolved to wait until 10:30am to let the lines peter out and then pop in to get one. Little did i know that with Apple's new policy of making buyers purchase a cellular plan on the spot and launch day issues with the activation servers, the lines were moving slowly if at all. I found the line stretching across Stanford Mall at 11am, and went back to work. No luck on Saturday either, and then i had to fly off to D.C. for my DoD grant review panel. I had six hours between the conclusion of my panel and my flight home on Tuesday, so i walked a mile in the oppressive humidity to an AT&T Store, but didn't bother going in after seeing the "sold out" sign in the window. While surfing the net in the lounge back at the hotel, i found Apple had a page updating store iPhone availability on a nightly basis. On Wednesday night it said the Palo Alto University Ave. store would have them the next day, so i showed up at 9am to found the store had opened at 8am and was out. Grrrrrrrr. However on Friday i drove Veronica to work in SF, and on my way back to work found a short line in front of the same store at 10:30am. I parked the car and hopped out, and a short half hour later i had myself an iPhone. I love it so far ... the app store has lots of great little programs, like Pandora Radio and the amazing Shazam, which will identify songs for you after recording 10 second snippets. I've been fiddling with iTunes and Garageband to make custom ringtones, with my current favorite being Daft Punk's "Robot Rock". It works great to notify me of incoming calls, but i'm a bit reluctant to use it as my morning alarm for fear of growing to loathe the tune.

Apparently "machination" is pronounced mack-ination. While the born-again Apple enthusiast is not unamused by this, i feel a bit silly to have been saying mash-ination all this time. Doesn't the "sh" version sound a little bit slicker?

Here is the fundamental paradox of Texas, as i see it. While in Bass Pro Shops with Emily, Jared, and Camden, i spotted a flyer in the checkout line asking for donations during Elk Country Conservation Month. Donations bought entry into a giveaway, for which first prize was an all expenses paid trip on an elk hunt. Hrm?

Oh, i get it ... they're saving elk country, not the elk themselves.

let me see you stripped down to the bone let me hear you make decisions without your television let me hear you speaking just for me let me see you stripped down to the bone let me hear you speaking just for me let me see you stripped down to the bone let me hear you crying just for me

No great news to report over the last few weeks, just the usual hodge podge of work. I spent a few days in Reston, Virginia reviewing grants for the Deparment of Defense, which was about as exciting as it sounds. Grant reviewing is a hit or miss affair ... if the proposals are worthwhile then it can be a very illuminating time, but if they're crappy then it's the longest few days of your life. This instance fell in the latter category.

I've gotten a few more rides in on my birthday bike, although i haven't yet come to the point of commuting to work on it. I did do a trial run to Stanford a few Sundays ago when i needed an extra day to catch up on all the work i'd been unable to get to during the week. With my messenger bag i rode up Woodside to Alameda, and over to and down Sand Hill to get to the Stanford medical campus. By the time i got to my office i wanted to cry. Soooooo out of shape. I got in a full day reviewing a few papers for journals (see my comments above on grant reviewing ... same deal), then biked over to meet my parents, Hilary and Jeff, and Veronica at Jeffrey's for some burgers. Hopping off my bike my quads tightened into lactic acid-filled fires. My teriyaki chicken sandwich gave me energy to pedal home. Not the most impressive display of my fitness, but a decent demonstration that i can bike to and from work and get something useful done while there.

I've only made it to the second act of Metal Gear Solid 4, with the usual excuse of work in effect. The action is as taut as ever, but so far the answers promised in this concluding chapter to the convoluted Metal Gear saga have been less than revealing. The entertaining 60's flashback Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater aside, the MGS series has been a downward spiral of retarded plotlines. That doesn't mean i'll stop playing ... i just wish i could skip the endless cutscenes. Well, i could, but my futile hope for closure won't let me.

I've spent the last few days in the Lone Star state, first in Dallas to see my sister Emily, brother-in-law Jared, and nephew Camden at their house and now in Houston for the annual meeting of the AAPM. My time in Dallas was spent hanging out at Emily's house with little Camden, and hopping from one air conditioned haunt to another to avoid the 100 degree humid heat outside. However despite these conditions, Jared took us out on Lake Ray Hubbard for some motorboating in his craft, with Camden clinging to mommy in his lifejacket. We moored the boat at a little shopping/restaurant area for dinner and some shopping at Bass Pro Shops. It was a restful couple of days, playing with the little guy as well as Emily's two mischievous dogs Tut (the little basenji shown here) and the gargantuan weimarauner with the appropriate name Hagrid. My trip was assigned a degree of difficulty as i left my ATM card in a cash machine at SFO before my departure flight. I realized it 5 minutes later, but my card was not to be found around the ATM. I phoned to cancel it no problem, but now i'm ATM cardless for the duration of my trip. A cash advance from Emily will hopefully tide me over. I arrived in Houston today, a short flight from Dallas and no less sweltering, and am now settled into my room at the Hilton. I went to one workgroup meeting this afternoon, and have another tomorrow as well as a talk to give Tuesday morning, but plan on getting a lot of work done while relaxing in my hotel room. Starting with catching up on fac13. Not the most academic of pursuits, but something i've neglected for too long.

Watching Blood Diamond on HBO at the moment. I've come to the conclusion that i am shamefully undereducated about the strife in Africa over the last 15 years. From Rwanda to Sierra Leone to Darfur, there's so much pain, suffering, and atrocity in the dark continent. Leo Di Caprio is underrated as a dramatic actor ... he has done well to shed his child star past and demonstrate genuine range in parts from the Departed to Gangs of New York to this one.

won't you come away with me? and begin something we can't understand i'm lonely as the irish sea and as willing as the sand won't you come unbury me? could you light me up like a lemon grove? i'll save you from a dreamy life to the hardest love you can ever know could it be so wrong, so wrong? but don't cry baby please don't cry baby i'll be tender 'til the day i die this love i have for you is terrible and true how the sheltered loveless life fades into the weakest shade of blue

While i certainly enjoy watching Manchester United flap in the wind as the Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid transfer saga winds on, this is getting ridiculous. He's under contract to United, but Madrid have consistently stoked the fires by stating interest and transparently attempting to unsettle the player to precipitate a move. United are understandably pissed at these sort of tactics, and have every right to feel aggrieved as Madrid are clearly trying to circumvent the rules by luring Ronaldo to their side and having him force United to accept a transfer. Essentially negotiating with a player under contract, a clear violation of FIFA rules. And yet, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said yesterday that United should let Ronaldo go if he wants to leave. He likened players being bound by contracts to slavery. Ooooookkaaaaaaay. By that logic we should just get rid of contracts altogether and players can do whatever the hell they please. Never mind that Ronaldo signed a contract with United in good faith that binds him to the club until 2010. It's situations like this that expose the world footballing powers as corrupt money grubbers, caring only about getting the world's best player to the world's largest club/brand and maximizing their profits in the process, contracts and rules be damned. Now i see Ronaldo is seconding Blatter's assessment ... looks like Madrid have their claws firmly in him.

In other football gripes, let me get something straight. 27 year old inconsistent beanpole striker Peter Crouch was sold to Portsmouth for £11 million, but Inter Milan offered only £8 million for 30 year old goal machine and fitness monster Frank Lampard? What f@$#ing bizarro universe are we living in?

Seen a bunch of movies lately. The summer semi-blockbuster Get Smart is surprisingly funny and worthwhile. It does well to update and expand upon its source material, as opposed to having Steve Carrell do his best Don Adams impression. Via Netflix we saw the pre-Flight of the Conchords Jemaine in the New Zealand indie flick Eagle Vs. Shark. I had no idea what to expect, and was more than a little taken aback at the seriousness of the subject matter, an outcast love story between a girl and her crush Jemaine, a damaged man-child with a neglectful father and a brother who killed himself. It was good, if a bit stilted in parts. The soundtrack however is excellent, with a collection of typically wonderful kiwi indie pop topped by the unexpected inclusion of the Stone Roses' "This is the One". We met up with Gabe Sonicliving and his ever-bustling entourage at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland to catch Wall-E, which despite my previously-stated reservations was very touching and original. Which is a good thing, considering if i'd disliked it i would've had to conceal my feelings during post-movie drinks with all of Gabe's Pixar-employee friends. Last night we watched a tivo-ed copy of the god-awful Shrek the Third. Mike Myers has apparently never met a horse he couldn't beat, dead or otherwise. A web search informed V that to no one's surprise, a fourth Austin Powers movie is in the works, apparently focusing on Dr. Evil. I wonder if he'll rap. Again.

My summer travel odyssey continues on Sunday with a brief cross-country jaunt to Washington D.C. to review some grants. I'm then back in the bay area for a week and a half before heading to Texas for two days in Dallas with my sister Emily, husband Jared, and little nephew Camden, then continuing on to sure-to-be-blistering Houston for a week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. Houston in July. As close to an exact opposite to "Paris in springtime" as I can possibly imagine. As for a synonym, oh, how about "hell in an oven"? Then i get to spend August at home working on a grant for a September 1 submission. Then down to L.A. for Kevin and Shioko's wedding before flying over to France for the World Molecular Imaging Congress. V is unfortunately not accompanying me for that, so we'll take a vacation together later in the fall. Then back to Redwood City, before a final excursion to Boston for the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology conference and a week visiting old haunts. Whew. That's exhausting just typing it all.

Just got a few albums by Scottish indie rock outfit the Twilight Sad. The music is good, very reminiscent of the Reindeer Section and moreover Arab Strap ... somber rock music sung with a thick Scottish brogue. However, i'm tickled by the progression of their album covers. Have a look ...

... leads to ...