Cute Kid Pix August 2023

More pictures that didn't make their own post...

We were out in the Shenandoah Valley, so we made a fun visit and a serious visit. The fun visit was to a huge playground in Front Royal, Virginia.

Almost a fortress!

More modern equipment

We also visited my parents' grave, where we reminisced a bit and said some prayers for them.

My parents' grave

In a build-up to basketball season, our parish was hosting skills workshops on Monday nights. My youngest wants to join the league in the late Fall, so this is a good way to meet other kids and work on abilities that have not been used for about a year.

Dribbling drill

My oldest had band camp in August, getting ready for the football season when school starts. At the end of camp, the music department had a music fest that included the chorus and the chamber orchestra performing before the marching band took the field.

Reservoir Marching Band!

We went out for dessert to the Charmery, an ice cream shop in Columbia, Maryland. I got a delicious scoop!

Happiness is focusing on the right things

We went to Glen Echo for a swing dance with my brother and his gal.

First act--Rockasonics

Second act--Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

Best dancers on the floor!

Our youngest had his birthday in August. We had multiple celebrations. The first was a family celebration with a lemon cake.

Posing with the cake

Blowing out the candles

In case you didn't count the candles

One of the gifts

Playing The Grape Escape

Battleship with Uncle John

The second part had local friends and was Zelda themed. Guests and hosts dressed up thematically.

Great costumes at the Deku tree

Home-made armor!

Also home-made

Mom and dad

The cake was decorated as a Hylean Shield.

Cake!

Blowing out the candle

In addition to a house-wide scavenger hunt, the fun included Zelda trivia with kids versus adults teams. We won't say who won.

Trivia time!

The party was a blast.

Cute Kid Pix March 2023

More pictures that didn't make their own post...

Our youngest started basketball lessons. 

Ready to shoot!

The practice eventually turned into games. His team did a great job.

Ready for action

Impressing coach

My daughter was inducted into the National Junior Honors Society at her middle school. The ceremony was interesting and they had desserts afterward. We made a double batch of Rice Crispy treats. Happily, there were leftovers that we took home!

Best part of the ceremony

Principal-certified

Good job, sis!

Our oldest had his spring concert, which was quite delightful.

Getting ready

Wind Ensemble in action

Speaking of performances, I saw this ad that made me laugh.

Shouldn't this performance be on a Saturday?

At the grocery store, I saw a new cereal that I couldn't believe they would try to pass off as a proper breakfast and not as junk food.

"Marshmallow Flavored Cereal with Marshmallows"?!?

I took my eldest to a vocations hike. While he was eating pizza with the other high scholars, I went to Attman's Delicatessen and had their Challa French Toast. Attman's claims they are the oldest continually-running Jewish delicatessen in America that is owned by the original owners. 

Yummy

My wife and I attended a gala fundraiser for Pallotti High School. They had auctions of which we won no items (so no extra junk in our house, whew!), lots of good food, and dancing. The photo booth gave us this fun card.

Makes a good bookmark

A close-up

My youngest's school had an open house day at the local library. There were STEM activities, story times, and a scavenger hunt. We did a bit of Tangrams and enjoyed doing the hunt.

To build a horse

Happy to be done!

Book Review: Slam Dunk Vols. 7 & 8 by Takehiko Inoue

Slam Dunk Volume 7 by Takehiko Inoue

Ryota Miyagi, the new hot-head player for the team, looks like he will another problem child like manga protagonist Hanamichi Sakuragi. Worse yet, they seem diametrically opposed to each other. That lasts until they discover they have more in common--romantic failure and unrequited love. They are ready to team up just in time for a gang of thugs to brawl with them in the high school gym.

This story started well but the teen violence at the gym was a lot to take. I found it a little unbelievable and very unlikeable. Hopefully the fight ends by the next issue.

Mildly recommended.

Slam Dunk Volume 8 by Takehiko Inoue

The big brawl morphs into a backstory for the leader of the thugs, Mitsui. He was an up-and-coming player who could have played for any team but wanted Shohoku because the coach inspired him. A persistent injury kept him out and he takes his anger out on the team. Once the coach finally makes it in to the court, Mitsui breaks down and asks to be back on the team. Can Shohoku have three hotheads on one team?

While the backstory made Mitsui more sympathetic, it wasn't enough for me to justify or excuse his bad behavior. Also, it feels like adding more drama for the sake of adding more drama, not as a natural outcome of the storyline. This manga is skating on very thin ice, I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it.

Not recommended.

Cute Kid Pix February 2022

More pictures that didn't make their own post...

My brother's birthday was at the beginning of the month and we went to Ginza of Tokyo to celebrate. The teppanyaki chef made a little message with our food appropriate to the holiday in the middle of the month.

A food rebus?

He also made the rice heart beat by tapping the handle-end of his spatula! It was a fun meal.

We did some other photo-worthy stuff in February but didn't take pictures! My wife and I went dancing for St. Valentine's Day but did not take any snaps of ourselves. Maybe we'll go to the St. Patrick's Day dance and get some good pictures. I'm not sure I have any green dress clothes.

We went skiing with the kids. They took lessons. My daughter went skiing again with Mom and my oldest son went with his Scouting BSA troop. The youngest did not have a good time with the lesson, so he probably won't go again any time soon.

My oldest son played basketball in a rec league in February (they started in January after a Covid-delay). He had a good time but the team did not do well.

I guess February was a bit of a doldrums for us. We did a lot of geocaching, surprisingly. Those adventures will get their own post later.

Book Review: Slam Dunk Vols. 3 & 4 by Takehiko Inoue

Slam Dunk Volume 3 by Takehiko Inoue

Hanamichi, the first-year, first-time basketball player for Shohoku High, continues his training in fundamentals of the game. Team captain Takenori Akagi gives him some special attention and training on lay-ups. Hanamichi is less enthusiastic because he thinks the move isn't flashy (so he really doesn't know basketball). He becomes much more enthusiastic when team-follower and little-sister-to-Akagi Haruko helps Hanamichi practice before school. He's been dying to walk her home from school. The love interest is just a side-plot, since the team is about to face one of the best in the area, Ryonan. Hanamichi assumes he'll be a starter and the star of the team but things don't work out that way. The game is just about to start at the end of volume 3.

Recommended.

Slam Dunk Volume 4 by Takehiko Inoue

The big game starts but Hanamichi Sakuragi is a benchwarmer! He has a lot of childish commentary and antics as he watches the game and waits his chance to be put in as the coach's "secret weapon." The game itself is interesting, with the Ryonan team dominating. Haruko is watching the game, so Sakuragi has more to show off for than himself. Will Sakuragi's cheerleading get the Shohoku High team in high gear? Will he ever get into the game?

I still can't decide if Sakuragi is too annoying to be a real hero. It seems like if he did do well, that would just feed his ego. He really needs to grow up more. I'm interested enough to keep reading.

Mildly recommended.

Book Review: Slam Dunk Vols. 1 & 2 by Takehiko Inoue

Slam Dunk Volume 1 by Takehiko Inoue

Hanamichi Sakuragi has just moved up to high school. He leaves behind a long list of romantic rejections. He also brings his hot-headed attitudes (he is a red-head), sometimes losing his temper and headbutting fellow students he finds annoying. In high school, a girl named Haruko likes the looks of him. He thinks she's cute. The only problem is she is totally into basketball and thinks that Sakuragi will be a great player for the school's team. Sakuragi is in good shape but doesn't play athletics. And the last girl he was interested in turned him down for a guy on the basketball team! He tries out for the team, doing anything and everything (including polishing the court floor) in order to get on the team. Sakuragi thinks the team captain is a gorilla and has a bit of a disrespectful attitude...until he learns that the captain is Haruko's big brother.

The story follows a familiar problem--having a hard time fitting in at high school. Sakuragi is a little bit unlikeable as he has trouble managing his temper and dealing with his classmates. The humor is fairly good and the high school drama is well done, so I will try some more of this series.

Recommended.

Slam Dunk Volume 2 by Takehiko Inoue

High school freshman Hanamichi Sakuragi faces a new challenge to his basketball ambitions. He wants to join the team to impress cute girl Haruko but team captain (and Haruko's brother) Takenori is more interested in the new first year talent and potential star Kaede Rukawa. Haruko has her eye on Rukawa. Sakuragi would like nothing more than Rukawa to lose to Takenori. Also, he'd like to play on the first-years-versus-starters game that will pit Rukawa against Takenori. If that was not enough drama, the head of the school's judo team tries to recruit Sakuragi. He's very persistent and also thinks the judo team will win nationals before the basketball team.

It's another exciting outing for Sakuragi. The manga acknowledges Sakuragi's personal problems and shortcomings in a light-hearted style that makes this fun to read. The drama feels a bit exaggerated though that's typical in manga (and often in good storytelling).

Recommended.

Book Review: Dragon Hoops by G. L. Yang et al.

Dragon Hoops written and drawn by Gene Luen Yang and colored by Lark Pien

In this autobiographical graphic novel, Gene Luen Yang describes the Bishop O'Dowd High School basketball team's season trying to win the California state championship. Yang was not a player or even the father of a player. He was not the coach or even on the coaching team. He was not a basketball fan or even a sports fan. He taught computer science for seventeen years and worked in his spare time as a graphic novelist (nights and weekends are reserved for family). In 2014, he heard a lot of buzz on campus about the basketball team. Yang was in a writing lull and looking for a new story to tell. A story about basketball would be a challenge. Yang started interviewing the coaches and players at O'Dowd as well as researching the history of basketball. He even started going to the games.

At this time, he started negotiating with DC Comics, who wanted him to write Superman. Such a project would be a dream come true but also a lot of work and pressure. That would be in addition to the extra work one the basketball book. In a pie chart, Yang shows his life balance and the new threat.

Yay balance!

Hmmm...

The additional burden of following the team (who played a lot of games out of town, sometimes across the country) forced him into making hard decisions about his own life and ambitions. As he found out more about the student athletes, he found inspiration in his own life.

The book is an amazing blend of history, current events, and personal journey. Yang moves between the narratives effortlessly, keeping the reader engaged and informed. A big challenge in depicting sports is the comics format, which forces a static representation of an action-packed game. He does a good job conveying the excitement, even leaving one page as a cliffhanger with the resolution requiring the turning of a page. He also does a great job using callback images, like the times when various characters have the courage to move forward, this is depicted with a closeup of their foot stepping forward. The other great callback is a group of scientists/experts who give wrong "informed" opinions for why women can't play basketball or minorities are inferior. And even the pie chart keeps showing up. His own journey to commit fully to comics writing is paralleled with the students' ambitions for their own lives and the team's hope to finally win the state championship.

Highly recommended--this is the best stand-alone graphic novel I have read in fifteen years of reading graphic novels.

Random Bits of Maryland and Delaware 2020

Here's some random intriguing things I managed to take pictures of while on our recent beach trip.

Usually an above-the-ground pool is not all that impressive. Right near the seashore I spotted this pool which was a lot more than I was expecting. Usually this kind of pool is on top of (or inside of) a building like a nice hotel. There it was, just blocks from the actual ocean.

Convenient parking underneath!

One home had a sign out that reminded me of the pubs in England.

Bar or residence?

Some of the buildings along the Ocean City boardwalk looked cool to me.

Balconies galore!

A nicely old-fashioned building

One giant chair is called a "Selfie Spot" which I seems more like a way to get free ads posted to the internet for their business. But my son really wanted to get a picture in the chair, so here it is.

I did think about cropping out the top of the chair

Near our rental, we saw some interesting buildings. I liked the matching corner balconies and was intrigued by what the upside-down L-shaped windows were for.

Fun corner balconies

Near our rental was a Saturday morning farmers' market. We didn't buy anything because we were on our way to mini-golf.

Farmers' market in Phillips's parking lot

We brought a basketball with us and got to do a little bit of practice among all the other activities.

Playing on a local court

The trip was fun but exhausting.

Taking a nap