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I've spent the last couple days having meetings at the Seattle Public Library (the central library in downtown).
The people involved with helping us out with our meeting room were really wonderful and went out of their way to help make us comfortable. The library itself is a very intriguing building that I need to take some pictures of before I head south tomorrow. It's open and airy and uses natural light very effectively. If you're coming to Seattle, visit the library. It's worth a look.
Situated in a city that's probably a little obsessed with technology, wireless is everywhere. The signal strength is very good and they've got a very big pipe that we took ready advantage of.
I only ran into one problem. Yesterday it confused me, but I finally paid enough attention today to figure out a part of it.
LA Observed is being filtered by the library (or some entity downstream), but it's a pretty nasty filter. Rather than temp fail (or even perm fail) the connection or suppress the DNS entries or anything that might make a typical HTTP connection fail quickly so the client could move on, the connection is being accepted and then nothing. Nada. On Tuesday I chalked it up to a problem with the site. Today I realized that I could make connections from other boxes that I was connected to, but not directly from my laptop via the libraries network.
Kevin Roderick has talked about filtering recently because his site is being filtered by the LA Times. I thought that was pretty odd before but now I'm really interested. Of all the nonsense I subscribe to via RSS, what could LAO possibly be doing to be filtered?
I was poking around in some pictures I took at Steve's graduation earlier this month and for some reason I keep getting caught up trying to figure out what I did wrong on these pictures. I was passing by the pool and realized that the pool behind the chain link fence looked like an interesting target. The second image might be right, but the first is just off somehow. Interesting, but focused in the wrong place perhaps.
Here's the other end of the scale...
I need to find an intermediate level view... and maybe use a macro focus to get what I really want. This whole foreground/background focus problem is interesting, I'll have to look around for a description of how to do it properly.
I only wrote myself one note about the last game of the NBA Finals on Tuesday (I was disappointed, I really wanted to see a game 7) and it was from the celebration afterward (and I didn't watch too much).
I was completely surprised by it. Pat Riley has always been known to have unique (yeah, we'll stick with that) motivational methods. Maybe this is one of them.
Bill Simmons caught it too. Hopefully one of his readers will explain when it started for all of us:
Does anyone else find it strange that Pat Riley now talks like an evangelist? When did this happen? Every time he held a press conference, I kept expecting them to flash a 1-700 number on the bottom of the screen. And if they had blown Game 6 after he only packed one suit and one tie (brilliant motivational ploy, by the way), would he have worn the same outfit for Game 7? See, these are the questions that sideline reporters should be asking.
He also caught Riley (before I wrote my note, but not by much) talking about giving up all his rings with the Lakers:
Second weirdest moment of the night: Pat Riley telling reporters that he would have given all five of his Lakers rings to win one Miami title. Really? All five? Look, we get the point -- you wanted to win the title. But did you really have to crap on Magic, Worthy, Kareem and Coop? I couldn't believe that. Imagine Kareem watching that at home and screaming at the TV, "You bandwagon bastard! I carried you for five titles!" before whipping a bottle of pinot grigio against the wall.
Riley was also ignoring Bob McAdoo (another Tar Heel) who played a big part in getting the first two rings and is a long time Heat assistant. That's the man behind the mask there. I've seen that guy before (LA, circa late 80's), no surprise.
The rest of his remarks brought me back to the revival meetings I've been to (it was a bit eerie). There are more than a few industries (I use that term loosely) that emphasize a shared belief in some bigger purpose to ease the pain of the 'hard sell'. They are amazingly effective at it. I don't imagine that top tier team sports are too much different. When things get difficult they've got to believe... in their own abilities, in each other, and the ability of the group to overcome. That's the pitch Riley has to make day after day, little by little. Behind the scenes McAdoo (and others) helped make it easier to grasp (he played the part of the super sub for two championship teams under Riley).
And let's face it, Pat Riley did perform a miracle or two. He pushed O'Neal to get fit (or as close as it's going to get). Twice. Phil couldn't get him there. He also got a lot of milage out of Walker and just enough out of Payton. Both were controversial additions, but he made the deals and he made it work once he kicked Van Gundy to the curb.
So yeah, he needs a new nickname. Reverend Riley works for me.
Marc Cuban, arguably the sporting worlds most well known blogger is back at it again today.
Even fans who dislike him admit that he's a great fan and does everything he can to make the Maveric's better. That he has done so while having such a public presence via BlogMaverick is completely unique. Go back and read about the Mav's letting Nash leave for Phoenix or letting Michael Finley leave last summer.
When I found out (afterward, I didn't even have time to watch Thursdays game) that he'd been dashing off blurbs during game one of the series I just had to go see if he was updating today. He is! We'll see if he takes a different approach after a loss, but for fans this is yet another way to connect with their team of choice. For the casual fan, compare Cubans boundless enthusiasm to Riles grumpiness or the big mumble's interviews. Who are you going to root for?
Basketball related weblogs really found a place this post season and now Cuban is providing his views in near real time. Weblogs may not have changed everything, but they are changing sports in ways that will have long term implications.
