Literally.

Fascinating.  Beautiful. Full panorama imagery of the art of the Sistine Chapel. [via Jockohomo]

Had a great weekend with the alums cheering for Cal at the Crew Classic. Not much to write up: Great food, Cal’s men won four races outright and was the only boat with the balls to take on the Olympic Team in an exhibition race, and for whatever reason, Cal’s women did not travel to the event this year.

Psyched for an alumni fan boy weekend. Randy will be out of town being judgmental, but I’ll be spending Sunday down at Mission Bay cheering for Cal Crew. Once again the very cool local Cal alums are hosting a tent and it should be as good as ever, despite the city’s paternalistic attitude about alcohol on the beach.

I missed last year due to an opportunity to head to Vegas (and watch Randy be judgmental), but definitely looking forward to heading back down this year. It’s always fun to watch the Bears win.

Last night’s Cirque du Soleil show was spectacular, as expected. Words really can’t do the experience justice.

Overheard from behind me during the contortionists’ act:
Boy’s voice (incredulous): Are those two girls?
Girl’s voice: They’re…flexible.

They certainly were, though I was more impressed with two acts from after the intermission.

The Wheel of Death was actually two wheels connected on a spinning axle, with gymnasts running both inside and outside the wheels, up to about fifty feet above the stage.

Balancing on Chairs was a slow strength and balancing exhibition, with a single gymnast repeatedly adding chairs to the stack, then balancing on the top of the stack and waiting for his next chair.

The highwire act was pretty good, but someone seemed to be having a bad night.  The performance did prove the value of an alert, live band (as opposed to a soundtrack recording) that can redo a stanza or two while someone does a little unplanned climbing.

The clowns throughout rocked. Their humor definitely seemed to be more adult than I remember from the Corteo show in 2008, but then again there shouldn’t have been that many kids there at an 8-11 show on a school night.  Great night, and we escaped with only buying one program and two coffee cups.

I’ll be wearing green whenever I get around to getting dressed, except when I go out for my swim because I don’t have a green speedo anymore, and I’m not going to run out and buy one just for the holiday.  I love the holiday and all things Irish, but some things are overkill.

Nothing really new here for the holiday in terms of content either, so please enjoy this YouTube rerun from last year.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone.

All the good holidays get seasons, so I’m happily and guiltlessly extending my birthday into a season this year.

Yesterday Randy rode the Flightline zip line at the Wild Animal Park.  I got a couple of photos of the preparations, but nothing from the ride itself.  My hands were too busy to work the Canon and the wind grabbed my helmet cam right after launch and repointed it at the sky.  Still the experience was a complete blast, and we broke down and bought the photos of the day taken by the zoo’s photographer.  Randy put some of those up on Facebook, and some more might make there way over here in the next few days.

I spent today with some overdue humiliation and exercise.  Swimming alone has been good for me, both physically and with the meditative aspects.  I’ve been feeling a bit stagnant lately and kinda hitting a wall, and have been looking for a way to avoid my tendency to become complacent.  Spent the morning getting beaten up and feeling old at a coached workout with a local masters swim team, Different Strokes.  Had a great time and should join if I can prove to myself I can commit to their schedule.

The birthday season is scheduled to wrap up with a grand finale Thursday evening at a showing of Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.  The tickets were generously funded by my parents’ birthday check, and thus makes the perfect finale to this year’s Season of Chuckie.

Up until two years ago we could sleep in. We could stay out all night. We could leave food and books (the other white meat) on the coffee table. Then all in an instant, everything changed.

Haven’t looked back for a moment.  Glad you’re here Diego.

Great effects.   Loved the 3-D.  Thought the hookah-smoking blue caterpillar needed a movie of his own.  But that’s about where my love for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland ends.

We caught the 3-D non-IMAX version of the movie at a sold-out showing in Del Mar last night.  The horde of entitled and self-absorbed high schoolers texting and walking in and out of the showing just reinforced my reaction to the movie: there was little to hold the attention for more than a quick jolt of eye candy.

Maybe my expectations were too high.  Whatever the reason, it just didn’t work for me.  Some great lines and fascinating visual takes on the individual characters just never found their way into a coherent story worthy of the hype and the assemblage of proven talent.

On the plus side, I did get to see the trailer for the upcoming Tron Legacy.  I’m feeling very good about that one.  I suspect that while the kiddies will be wearing Mad Hatter costumes at ComicCon this summer, the vendors will be pushing Tron for all they can make.

Didn’t watch much of the recent Winter Olympics. Not much interest in winter sports, and NBC’s archaic time-delay policies pretty much eliminated any suspense in the competitions.

Did see this photo of the U.S. Bobsled Team circulating the internet the last couple of days though. It’s been kinda hard to miss.

We’ve done our fair share of bobsledding.  We hit the local faux-Swiss alps regularly and catch sight of the Yeti now and then.  But somehow our post-ride team photo looks a bit different.

Maybe we need to get suspenders?

Doing the first of the month chores for the practice, and tweaking the backend of the photo gallery for the sites here.  Zen Photo put out an upgrade that’s working nice and smooth, and allowed for a new template that I’m really loving.  Nice to have a bit of freshness in place as we head into spring.

I haven’t shared that much here recently because life’s been a bit slow.  Winter, even a So Cal winter, can get me that way.  Spring will be here soon enough though.  Looking forward to some short trips and some sunshine to get me out of my current rut.