One of the most important lessons we can teach our children in sports is the true value of good sportsmanship. A better example of this could not have been made than what was displayed in the women’s division two double header pitting Central Washington against Western Oregon this past Saturday. In one of the last games of the regular season, these two teams displayed a virtue of kindness that all could admire and should follow.

Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school’s career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.

In the face of heckling fans, Sara blasted a home run hit over the center field wall. As her two teammates already on base jogged past the third base coach with celebratory hi-fives Sara rounded first base just missing the bag. She stopped to turn back in a motion that ended up tearing her ACL and brought her to the ground. Sara, on her first home run of her last college game would not be able to continue under her own power.

To make things worse, the rule book states that if anyone from Sara’s team touched her she would be called out and her hit would be for nothing. This left her coach, Pam Knox, with only one option - sub in a pinch runner at first base in place of Sara and record the play as a two run single.

“And right then,” Knox said, “I heard, ‘Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?’”

It was the voice of Mallory Holtman, the starting senior for Central Washington who holds nearly every offensive record for Central including career home runs. Having been one of the most senior players on the field, Mallory knew that there is nothing in the rule book that states the other team can not touch or aide an opposing team’s base runner around the bases.

Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky’s left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game’s history hit all three players.

For her part, Holtman seems not altogether sure what all the fuss is about. She seems to genuinely believe that any player in her position on any field on any day would have done the same thing. Which helps explains why it did happen on that day and on that field.

Simply, amazing…

I found this story on ESPN and felt it needed to be shared, read the entire text written by Graham Hays at: http://espn.com

I’ve had my Flickr account going on almost three years now. Admittedly, it’s not something I’ve used a whole lot in the past - but recently, with my latest photo surge, I’ve really become involved in the culture and community surrounding Flickr.

This is mostly attributed to what you could call “being discovered” a few weeks ago. Random people started commenting on my images and marking them as favorites. The feedback was encouraging and only magnified my urge to get out and shoot combined with my new found enjoyment for cycling photography. I’ve also started doing my part and letting other photographers on Flickr know what I think about their images through marking my favorites and commenting on their technique and composition.

I woke up this morning to find two of my images included in the Flickr Explore pool. This is monitored by a super secret algorithm that measures the “interestingness” of an image through the swarm of Flickr users interested in a particular image; loosely based on such aspects as comment count, user favorites, views and overall frequency. Included in the Explore pool are the top 1,000 Flickr images that have been deemed interesting by Flickr’s secret sauce. One of my cycling images is currently number 69 and one of my tulip images is number 105.

You can see my photography on my Flickr page as well as what images I like by visiting my favorites list. It is my favorites list which I draw from for my weekly Flickr Pick, that of which, I know I have been slacking on lately. I promise I’ll get back to more frequent updates…

I went to take some shots of another cycling race that my brother and the team he rides for was in on Thursday. The weather wasn’t the most ideal for what I was looking for, but I feel I made due with what I had… overcast, slow shutter speeds and experimenting with my flash to get any sort of shadow or depth.

It’s rather difficult to shoot fast moving objects on an overcast day surrounded by trees. I walked the course during the 5:30pm race to get a feel for what lines the riders were taking and where I should best position myself for my brother’s race. I found one stretch that offered a decent amount of light, a pleasant background - away from ugly sign posts - and where the riders came very close to the curb that I would be standing at.

The first few test shots proved to be mediocre at best. They were flat and boring due to the aforementioned lighting conditions. So I decided to experiment a little bit with my flash (Nikon SB-800). I was already shooting at a 30th of a second, forced to only take pan and blur shots; I figured it wouldn’t hurt to break a few rules and start popping my flash. This idea brought me some fairly interesting and great looking shots and hopefully I didn’t annoy any of the riders with the flash.

You can view the images on my Flickr page along with the rest of my photography…

We take snap shots of vacations, events and every day occurrences. We record our experiences through imagery and video; but what about all those hours spent cooped up inside the office, cubicle farm or the meeting room? Is it really all that boring? Sure, you spend a lot of time at work; it’s the same scenery day in and day out, nothing special. But what if you tried looking at it from a different perspective? Maybe through the eyes of your first day… or a visit to someone else’s office for the first time.

Office Snapshots is a weblog that collects pictures from places people spend most of their week. Though, most of the images are of Web 2.0 internet startups/companies, some are readily familiar to everyone. You will find Web 2.0 offices like Craigslist, Google (Zurich), Threadless and Tumblr. They also have some large corporations as well: GAP Inc., The New York Times, Adobe and my favorite Pixar. (Who wouldn’t want to work at Pixar!?)

Call me a nerd, geek or weirdo… but I find these pictures pretty interesting. It’s a view into a professional world that isn’t familiar to me where others work (and sometimes play) in their own everyday “mundane” environments. Mostly, it turns out to be a case just like dog owners look like their pets. I was surprised to see the Craigslist HQ look like it did, but then it really makes sense when you think of what their website looks like.

It makes me wonder how interesting people would find the office I work in… and how interesting your office might be.

Dear Mother Nature,

As you may well be aware, it is now officially Spring. Though, looking outside at my snow buried car - you would think it was December. Last week I was walking around in shorts and a short sleeve tshirt and my room mate got a sun burn washing his car. It would be very much appreciated if you would get the weather and temperature in sync with the time of year.

Thanks,

- e

Question: Why are we planning to send people to Mars when science can’t define a cure for the hic-ups?!

Spooking, Peanut Butter, Holding your breath or drinking water… backwards, none of it works. When I get the Hic-ups once, I get them all damned day. I hate it, more than anything in this world, even on Mars.

A quick search in Google brought me to this hilarious solution:

If you have the hic-ups take a glass of water put your thumbs in your ears your two index fingers pushing your nose together and with the rest of the fingers pick up the glass. Holding all routes for the hic-ups closed drink the water till you need a breath of air then afterwards you will burp and they will be gone.

Drowning yourself, to me, does not sound like a cure. Desperation, that is what brings us to such solutions, not science. Apparently this works, or at least the mental picture of someone attempting it does. Bonus points if you send in a picture of yourself demonstrating it.

Hic…

Update: Well, who knew, there actually is a cure. If you want to call it that, it’s called being “sedated.” Honestly, I’d try the drowning myself cure first.

Effective treatment with sedatives often requires a dose that renders the person either unconscious or highly lethargic. Hence, medicating singultus is done short-term, as the affected individual cannot continue with normal life activities while taking the medication.

My hic-ups are gone now…

I’ve been using this website the past few months to track shipments for work as well as my personal shipments. It’s called Track the Pack and is a free service that allows you to track packages from UPS, FedEx, DHL and USPS all in one simple and organized website location. Paste the tracking number, give it a name and then sit back and watch your package travel across the embedded map, marking each stop along the way. They also offer iCal / RSS Feeds, a Firefox extension, a Mobile version (for iPhone and iPod Touch) and a branded version for your company to offer tracking services to customers.

Try it out: http://trackthepack.com/

* Bonus points if you can find the geek reference in this article… good luck. (Hint: “ePostage”)

Well, not quite but wishful thinking! The Seahawks (along with the rest of the NFL) announced their 2008 season schedule today. Looking at this line up, I could see them ending up with a 12 - 5 record for the regular season… and that’s being cautious… and I’m obviously bias.

Though the Hawks won’t play a Monday Night game this season, they will be playing on Thanksgiving for the third time in franchise history against the Dallas Cowboys and to a national audience. Seattle is tied with having the best Monday Night winning percentage in the NFL. So I’m hoping they will have an edge as I see this being their Monday night game instead; even though it’s actually a Thursday. Besides, I grew up in a Washington Redskin house so I loath everything that has to do with “Football” and “Dallas” in the same sentence.

New England Patriots in Seattle, 12th Man, Blue Thunder, its April and I’m all ready excited… Go Hawks!

Sonics who?