At Yankees game for Dad’s 60th birthday
Took Dad to the Yankees-Mariners game yesterday for his 60th birthday. It was the first time he had been to Yankee Stadium. I think the last time we went to a ballgame together was April 6, 1992 for the opening of Camden Yards. Before that, it was Pirates-Mets at Three Rivers in the mid-80s when I was the batboy for the Pirates and there was a bench-clearing brawl.
Baseball games in America are the quintessential father-son activity. Few activites create the type of nostalgia, harkening you back to days of yore like an afternoon at the ballpark. Everyone is a kid again at a baseball game, confirmed by the guy in his mid-60s sitting next to us diligently recording the game in his scorebook. After arriving late in the middle of the 2nd inning, my father, the consummate multi-tasker, shut off his cell phone and began to focus some time in the 4th. "Is Jeter third in the lineup?" When confirmed, he added "We’re watching a perfect game so far." Later, when Nick Green was walked in the 6th, he remarked, "they just walked a .157 batter." Needless to say, I was impressed with his baseball astuteness.
In the first few innings, he repeatedly expressed his surprise at the 54,000 out for an afternoon game in the middle of the week - "don’t these people work." Leaving the game, however, his mind considerably calmed, he commented, "I forgot how much fun baseball games are….we should do this more often."
Photo from Israeli-Lebanese border
Wow!! This photo from NY Times today is intense.
Dixieland band plays in Cobble Hill Park
Walking home today, I saw a Dixieland band in full regalia setting up for a
7pm set in Cobble Hill
S. Brooklyn in general) months ago, but it just keeps getting better and better and better…. 
Kevin Ryan - NYC Entrepreneur
Met with Kevin Ryan, of DoubleClick fame, recently. He
is back in the game launching three, yes you read correctly, three startups simultaneously.
ShopWiki has
already received some press in the NYC Tech community, but his others are
flying more under the radar. Panther
Express is a content delivery network (CDN) similar to Akamai, except
offering the service at a considerable discount. Kevin is also in the
process of launching Music Nation which is a classic long tail business model,
providing distribution (over internet TV) for the gazillions of talented of musicians that get
rejected by American Idol. Smart. We need more entrepreneurs like
Kevin in the NYC Tech community.
Psychadelic mushrooms tested at Johns Hopkins
The Wall St Journal ran an article today entitled "Go
Ask Alice" on a study conducted by prominent doctors and medical
researchers at Johns Hopkins on the effects of psychedelic mushrooms - aka
psilocybe cubensis. The most interesting takeaway from this
carefully controlled study was the overwhelmingly positive experiences the
majority of participants reported. To quote the WSJ:
A third of the participants said the experience with psilocybin was the
single most significant experience of their lives, and an additional 38% rated
it among their top five such experiences — akin to, say, the birth of a first
child or the death of a parent. This was
the first known study of psychedelic drugs since 1962.
Interesting….
Puma v Adidas in world cup finals
In a sideplot that some may have missed, Adidas (France) was going up against arch-rival Puma (Italy) in the world cup final match. The two companies have a storied history, having been birthed in the same German factory by two brothers who later parted ways, leaving a lasting mark on the town. BBC’s coverage of the story was interesting.
Great Wired article on music biz
Chris Anderson wrote a very informative article in this month’s Wired that explains the evolution of the modern music industry. The Wired article is well organized and a great tutorial for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics that are shaping this industry at a unique point in its evolution.