First of all, welcome home to Commander Chris Hadfield after a long stint on the International Space Station. He’s done more cool space videos than anyone (many posted on this blog).
And in case you missed it, his version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity:
Life’s little accomplishments are often the best. Victoria has been apparently doing this for a while, but a couple of weekends ago was the first time I got to see it…
OK, the Yankees are in first place. In a normal year, that would be normal. But this year, most folks picked the Yankees to be rather lame. And throw in injuries to:
So today the Yankees won with a starting pitcher named Vidal Nuno going 5 and a reliever named Adam Warren going 4.
We won 7-0.
Honestly, it’s been a fun season so far, because we are winning on pitching and small ball. But I don’t know who these guys are…
Spiderman is filming outside my office today. I had to go through a gauntlet of checkpoints just to get in.
Unfortunately I couldn’t see much. They didn’t let me linger and my office window faces the wrong way.
This is a block from my office. And these shots of how they transform the area are interesting.
These must have been shot over the weekend, but also a block from my office.
Never a dull moment in Dumbo…
UPDATE: The filming is either done or they all took a break, so I wasn’t rushed along. This is the view from our door. That bus way in the back is the one Spiderman keeps from tipping over.
A hilarious take on author Dan Brown’s style…
Tonight was a great Brooklyn night. Danielle had a sleep over at a friend’s place and they picked Danielle up after school. So Victoria got a night by herself. Now Tori loves Danielle and misses her, but this was a bit of an only child experience that she never gets.
Since Danny was out for the night, it made sense to try to go out for a nice dinner. Tori is the more adventurous eater, so we tried a trendy place that we haven’t been to before. With no reservations, a table would have taken a while, but they have counter seating in front of the chefs and we could sit right away.
This was actually a bonus for Tori. This is one of those places where the entire kitchen is right out in the middle of everything. So watching them cook everything was totally entertaining.
The place is called Colonie and was fantastic. The chefs were going crazy keeping up with the crowd as we watched, but they still looked up to say hi to Tori.
The food was excellent. The kind of place you don’t find elsewhere. Tori ate well and was rewarded with a Brownie Sundae that was out of this world.
Have I mentioned how much Brooklyn rocks?
I’ve blogged about this before, but I find myself revisiting it, to remind myself of the values that matter. Netflix got well known for their vacation policy (or lack thereof), but it’s just a small part of their responsibility culture. The whole presentation is here. It’s 128 slides but it’s a quick read.
If you are in a hurry, read the 9 key values at the start. But by then you’ll probably keep going. My favorite phrase of the whole deck:
Great Workplace is Stunning Colleagues
I love the word “stunning”.
Another great slide is:
Why are we so insistent on high performance?
In procedural work, the best are 2x better than the average.
In creative/inventive work, the best are 10x better than the average, so huge premium on creating effective teams of the best
Seriously, just read the whole thing. You won’t regret it.
Something like this would usually come from a partisan political blog. But when the source is Scientific American, I take it a bit more seriously:
In the category of “headlines I never thought I would write” this is right up there. But courtesy of Modern Farmer (another phrase I never thought I’d write), this article is fascinating.
We don’t have this problem in Brooklyn…
Exactly a year ago today, Mariano Rivera tore his ACL, ending his season and requiring surgery and rehab. He’s back this year and is currently the oldest player in Major League Baseball.
For the folks that wondered if he could bounce back from a torn ACL at 43, here are his stats so far this year:
Saves: 11 (out of 11 chances, tied for the best in the majors)
Walks: 1
Strikeout: 12
ERA: 1.59
WHIP: 0.97
Those last two stats are slightly better than his career average.
His velocity is down a bit, so he does actually age. But opposing batters don’t seem to think so.
From the NY Post:
“Even after all these years,” an AL scout said, “I don’t know what I would advise hitters to do against him. They have been trying to figure him out for 20 years. I’m guessing they aren’t going to figure him out this season either.”
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