Sunday, September 24, 2006

My head is spinning with numbers. Over the last 3 days my baseball prediction program has just gotten pummeled, losing pretend-money each of those days. I've been immersed in the data all weekend trying to figure out if it's because of bad luck, bad data, bad math, or bad algorithms. The answer? Probably all of the above.

I fixed what I could, but the jury is still out on whether this will make me a pretend millionaire or not. I was a virtual millionaire once before. The previous time didn't end up doing much for my bank account in the end, but I looked mighty handsome in the mirror for a brief while.

When I wasn't obsessing over baseball stadium park effects this weekend, I was mostly doing family stuff. Today I spent a couple hours trying to bash all the gender stereotypes out of daughter. First, we played an hour of Lego, where I built various war-like and violent structures, and then crashed them around in comical ways. I kept interrupting her while she was trying to build a "peaceful park" out of Lego.

Afterwards, we did her soccer homework. Her coach had asked all the players to spend some time wrestling with their parents. So, I pinned her. Repeatedly. As it turns out, having 100+ pounds on an opponent was the advantage I was missing the previous times I had tried to wrestle. I totally kicked Daisy's ass.

We also played a little garage-door soccer (where one player is the goalie and defends the garage door, which is the pretend goal). She looked darling in her pink frilly dress trying to defend my adult-sized kicks.

In general the manliness bar is set pretty low in this family, but I'm doing what I can to man her up a bit. It seems like the right approach here in San Francisco.

5 comments:

zelda1 said...

Poor Daisy. Stop wrestling her or kicking fast soccer balls at her or building big war machines, the United States has enough war mongers. Now I'm going to sound like your mother, what if that ball hit her and put her eye out?

Sister--Helen said...

You need a son....adopt one to stop that GENE POOL!

Mike said...

Zelda, if that large soccer ball manages to get into her small eye socket, then I think we have bigger problems to worry about than my daughter's eyesight, like the very integrity of the space-time fabric.

4th Sister, if I had another kid, I'd have even LESS time to work on my all-important baseball program.

Miss Misse said...

It's awesome time to spend with your child male or female. It's great for them. My girls love playing sports and rough housing with Daddy, even the younger less sporty, girly daughter. Bonding time! (and he is their only hope of coordination in that area)

Mike said...

Miss Misse, sadly my wife is Daisy's only chance of being coordinated. I'm a klutz and I have horrible form.