theparkerfamily.org

  • world team tennis comes to d.c. (who knew?!?)

    Washington Kastles vs. Delaware Smash, Kastles Stadium, Washington D.C.
    really, who knew such a thing existed … but apparently Washington now has a franchise (the “Kastles” annoyingly enough) in the three decade old “world team tennis” league.

    we only tripped on this because the D.C.’s home “stadium” (air quotes, the court is temporary and was constructed in the middle of a parking lot downtown) was used in the trials for the homeless world cup.

    the format is a stripped down version of tennis (first to five wins the set, first to four wins the game, no deuces/advantages) where each set is a different competition (men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles, women’s singles). the team with the most sets/games wins.

    tragically, washington got whupped (by the 2 win, 10 loss delaware smash) so the two best parts of the evening had nothing to do with the matches:

    • first, in between sets there was a wii tennis match between an 8-year old and a member of the d.c. team where the kid got crushed.
    • second, half way through the final set of the match, the public address mis-announced washington player Sacha Jones (17-year old new zealander tennis prodigy) as Sasha Cohen (23-year old american gymnast or 36-year old british “borat” actor).

    all joking aside, it was a good time, and the organizers were obviously trying really, really hard to make sure everyone had a good time.

  • signs my wife could very well be a boy …

    with apologies to letterman, here are the top five signs the person you married might be a boy … (all said by the lady sparkler this week):

    5. "Awesome! You didn’t tell me the Tour de France was on — move over."
    4. "Of course you should get an iPhone!"
    3. "Dychenko is starting in midfield for D.C.? Oh, well … he can’t be worse than Gallardo."
    2. "I think Evan would make a great house-husband."
    1. "Hi, honey … I’m home. Can we play video games tonight?"

    as for the latter, after more than a little effort, the lady sparkler and i have beaten super mario galaxy through the first time in two-player mode. i completely sold her short, thinking she’d bail after the first couple of challenges.

    turns out she was totally addicted, and was literally bouncing up and down as we polished off the 100th challenge last night.

  • so, i know i’m the only one who cares …

    … but i had to share that I am in first place in my fantasy baseball league. i’m only two points up (out of 2908 points scored) and there is no way i will still be in first by tomorrow, so i’m going to tell anyone who will listen today before i begin the long slide back towards mediocrity.

  • lion king @ the kennedy center

    amazing considering, but i somehow avoided seeing The Lion King until today. A friend scored us tickets in 8th row center, and the experience matched the seats. The production values (lighting, costumes, choreography) were amazing. it’s nice to see creative stuff coming out of the great white way again.

    Photo courtesy of Disney’s Lion King.

  • when the lights go down in the city

    half of d.c. united’s stadium (rfk) lost power tonight, during a match against CD Guadalajara. the outage stopped play for 19 minutes, and freaked us out imagining the chaos if *all* the lights had gone out. united, who is trying to move to a new home that isn’t 47-years old, announced over the p.a. that this was “yet another reason we need a new stadium” … hmmm.

  • a perfect holiday weekend

    [Photo]
    ECPA20080706_1540, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    i’m almost embarrassed about how perfect a holiday weekend this was. little bit of everything … getting out, staying in, sports, animated movies, fireworks. granted, this will solidify my reputation as a 11 year-old boy, but i have no complaints.

    fireworks

    on the fourth itself, we snuck out of town to frederick, maryland for a party with a couple of friends, which featured their new best buddy … a frozen margarita machine. on the trip back into town, we saw three different fireworks displays from the interstate and still made it back in time to watch a re-run of the d.c. fireworks in high-def.

    wall-e

    once the right-wing blogs starting attacking pixar’s new animated feature — “leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind”, “90-minute lecture”, “liberal nonsense”, “Malthusian fear mongering” — i figured it had to be good, at it was … like “clear your calendars” good. or, “rent somebody’s children so you have a justification” good.

    orioles

    good friend lighting chick knits scored some 15th-row tickets to the orioles, so we made the pilgrimage up to camden yards. had a super, super great time … and could just about squeeze Texas hottie Josh Hamilton’s Charmin as he slid into third. now, the orioles are still on my blacklist ’cause peter angelos did everything short of sprouting horns and dancing with a pitchfork to prevent d.c. from getting a baseball team, but the orioles lost (shocking!) and every dime from my wallet went straight to the beer/sausage vendors.

    harry potter

    the last part of the weekend was also the most embarrassing: spindler and i tivo’d the first four harry potter movies — abc family was doing a marathon — and watched them over 12 hours on sunday afternoon. nary a single brain cell was exercised in the process of this remarkable achievement.

    if only every weekend was so good …

  • david, i love you!

    [Photo]
    ECPA20080629_1532, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    oh, my … where to begin.

    you’d think in washington, d.c. the hotest ticket in town would be some kind of political event, or maybe that tiger woods golf tourney happening out in bethesda next weekend.

    but with approval ratings in the toilet (congress is at 19%, the president at 29%) and tiger on his back with a bum knee … the hottest ticket in the district this summer (hands down) is the visit of super-fantastic-megariffic-star david “bend it like” beckham to our small corner of the footballing world.

    his trip to d.c. last year was a circus … and one which the lady sparkler and i opted to watch on the telly instead of braving the soccer-mom driven mania. this year was sure to be no different and — through a couple of tickets t.l.s. scored from work — we got to see it up close and personal.

    i’m not exactly a stranger to the beguiling charm of the english flavour of football (or “footy” as the lady sparkler has taken to calling it…) but the national obsession with the chiseled greatness that is mr. beckham has me more than a little puzzled.

    sure, i can understand 12 year-old girls screaming … and MAYBE we can extend that to their 40 year-old moms. but, the place was packed with 25-35 year old men with mint-edition beckham branded l.a. galaxy unis … shouting out adulation, and snapping pics. and remember, this is d.c. — it’s not exactly a home game for a team from los angeles.

    i’m a 25-35 year old male and, while i am not so ego-tastic to speak for a whole decade of humans, i must say that i remember far more lows in “the david’s” career (thrown out of 1998 World Cup, lackluster showing in 2002 and 2006 Cups, flipping off fans at Euro 2000, benchings by two of the greatest coaches of this age) than i remember his highs.

    so while i respect david for his 100+ appearances for the national team, and for his collection of early club championships — that’s enough for me to hope he does well in the States, but not enough to drop $70 on an spanking new beckham jersey and scream at him like a little girl.

    speaking of which, the funniest moment of the day was shortly after we arrived with some of the lady sparkler’s co-workers … we were poking fun of the whole scene, when someone from two rows back, right behind out heads, shouted “DAVID, I LOVE YOU!”

    unfortunately, we just *lost* it.

    oh, right. the game. d.c. crushed them. beckham looked miserable (as a proper brit should, playing footy .. during the summer .. in 98-degree weather .. in an american swamp).

  • homeless world cup

    [Photo]
    0628081034c.jpg, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    lately, i’ve been looking for something (really, pretty much *anything*) to redeem my faith in the larger human race. but, this morning, i’m glad i got out of bed …

    now, the great thing about sports is the (near) universal appreciation of the stories behind the competition … so long as you know where to look.

    for every $15-million slugger that dopes his way to the home run record, there is a $600,000 baller for the Celtics who overcomes homelessness on the way to win a NBA championship. for every perfectly-formed sprinter turned out by the u.s. track and field machine, there is a 41 year-old South African dissident who overcomes two shattered knees to break a world record at the World Pacific Games.

    never has this been more apparent, that this morning when we went to the u.s.a. trials for the homeless world cup (which is exactly what it sounds like: a (soccer) world cup where all the competitors are homeless).

    the tournament was started in 2001 by some activists for the homeless as a way to inspire the homeless to make positive life changes, and some 70% of past participants have gotten off the streets for good.

    the u.s. team is being selected this weekend, with a tournament down by the old convention center. city teams from across the u.s. are participating (atlanta, charlotte, minneapolis, new york, the district, austin, etc) with the the best players from each squad being selected for the trip to Melbourne.

    there weren’t many people in the crowd for the games we watched, but it was still an incredible experience. the talent and skill were way beyond what we were expecting, and it was pretty easy to see that the competitors were having the time of their life.

    if any of this is sounding interesting, the story of 6 participants in the 2006 Homeless World Cup has been turned into a documentary called kicking it (in theatres now). we’ll be there later this week …

  • the apocalypse

    [Photo]
    IMG_3515.CR2, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    i’ve been ruminating about this blog post for about two weeks now, which accounts for my recent lull in blog activity. and while it seems rude to start a global panic, i think we need to come to terms with the fact that the world is ending. like, tomorrow.

    just listening to npr this morning — my adoring wife’s daily ritual — makes a case for the pending apocalypse that’s at least as good as the case for increasing domestic oil production.

    let’s run through the major topics addressed as i refused to get out of bed this morning, hoping the world wouldn’t notice my absence … we’ve got:

    • flooding in the midwest
    • drought in the south, panhandle (drier than the Dust Bowl of 1930s)
    • fires engulfing california (two months earlier than usual)
    • earthquakes in china (69,000 dead)
    • cyclones in myanmar (138,000 dead or missing)
    • plants on European mountain ranges are moving up the mountain, searching for “higher ground”

    … and, lest we forget, people are killing each other in iraq, afghanistan, israel/palestine, and (it seems) most of sub-saharan africa and south asia — not to mention drug wars in central and south america.

    add this to what you and i already know:

    • gas prices are through the roof
    • home values are in the toilet
    • food staple costs are up 30% in the last year
    • the stock market has slid back to where it was in July of 1999
    • consumer confidence index is the third lowest since it began in 1952
    • presidential approval rating is at 28% (worst sans truman and nixon)
    • a whopping 14% believe our country is moving in the right direction (lowest ever)

    …and what al gore (the guy who invented the interweb) has told us:

    • the 11 warmest years on record have all been in the last 13 years
    • the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years
    • the flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade

    … and we’ve pretty well slept with the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and possibly tried to steal their girlfriends. we’ve got conquest, war and famine all sorts of angry. turns out there is even a good, old fashioned plague (locusts in massachusetts) which, in other news, can’t be a good omen for the democratic party.

    i was talking to a friend of mine about this “crazy like a fox” idea at lunch today, and it turns out that i am not the only one stockpiling water, duck tape and plastic sheeting. both abcnews and the associated press have come to similar conclusions … and both in the last month.

    now, looking at my own reaction — and running through what i remember of the five stages of grief — i have either skipped three stages (straight to depression) or am still in denial. actually, considering i have blacklisted all sources of news from my daily existence (npr, bbc, washington post, even those metro tabloids) i think i’m clearly in “kathleen harris running for public office”-level denial.

    that leaves anger (which’ll be easy!), bargaining, depression (that’s easy too!) and then acceptance. of course, all four together might be hard to get through by the time we turn into nothingness, like, tomorrow.

    p.s. if you are planning on being raptured, now would be a good time.

  • flexday: monuments, the non-postcard edition

    i’m getting a little bored with shooting d.c., so on this particular flex day i biked around the national mall … but i only brought the wide angle lens. some pretty interesting pictures happen when a wide lens forces you to change how you see the capital’s iconic monuments.
    Explore the Photo Set:
    flexday: monuments, the non-postcard edition