Little League All-star Game

My one and only nephew, Mathew, was named to the Farmington All-star team. I made sure to get to the game. It started out looking like a blow out by the other team. Something like 8-0 after the 2nd inning. It was painful. But then Farmington started to come back and they were holding on defensively. Truth be told I was not convinced. But I'll be damned if in the last inning, as the sun was already fading on the horizon, Farmington was only down 1 run. Matt was up to the plate with 2 outs, and 2 on the bases. We could barely see the ball and just knew they were going to call the game soon. My sister was freaking out and wishing that it wasn't Matt that had to face this pressure. She had to walk away.



Whack!! He hit the ball just fair enough to get to first and drive in the tying run. It was then that the coaches decided to call the game. A tie was a perfect end to that All-star game. It turned out to be a really fun game. My nephew played really well and I was very proud of him. Let's hope he has a better career in baseball then his uncle.

A tip To All Rebel Fighters

The best time to make your escape from stormtroopers is when someone asks to take their pictures. They can't resist hamming it up for the camera. Simply bust free of their grip and sock them with a upper cross. Works every time.




More stormtroopers photos and other pics from Siggraph are on Flicker. Siggraph is the big annual conference for all things computer graphics. On Thursday night they had a special showing of the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie.

Star Wars Exhibit

The Science Museum of Minnesota is hosting an exhibit of props and costumes from the Lucasfilm's archives. Linda and I took in the exhibit on a early Saturday morning in the hopes of avoiding the crowds. It worked. They add some displays about real robots, etc.. to rationalize the inclusion in a science museum. Whatever - its Star Wars!



My favorites were from the orginal 3 movies. Sure I have a 30 year connection to those movies, but really I thought the models were more interest. I could see a lot of the hand of the artist in the creation of the models. By the time the final 3 films came around, manufacturing processes like vacuum forming and stereolithography made creating spaceships of any shape and concept cheap and easy. In the 70s they mostly used plastic airplane and tank models in a process called kit bashing. So if you get a chance to looking really closely to the Millineum Falcon you can prehaps recognize a part from your favorite model.



It was on the Falcon that I made my favorite discovery. Right at the very front of the right side loading arm (yes, I know what it is) is a tiny Champion spark plug stick! Awesome! Who knew Han Solo used Champion.