Blogoversary

Tomorrow is Little Nuances' third blogoversary. That hardly seems possible. This is the 694th post to the blog and you'd think that a person would run out of things to say after so many posts, but I haven't so far. Thanks for sticking with me. Looking forward to another year together.

Let Them Play

I live in the same house I grew up in and I've been noticing something the past couple of months that reminds me of my childhood days in this neighborhood--lots of families with children have moved in and the kids are playing everywhere.

Just last night, I saw three little girls and a little boy riding their bikes and/or rollerblading along the sidewalk in front of my house. Once in a while the kids in the neighborhood even congregate in my driveway and I don't have any problems with that.

I can remember adults from my neighborhood yelling at me as a boy for fetching a ball from their yard or for walking on their grass. I vowed back then to never become one of those people. I say, let the kids play. So what if they walk on my grass? Isn't that what grass is for?

I love the fact that my neighborhood apparently has a safe enough feel to it that parents are willing to let their little ones stray down the street a house or two. Unfortunately, my area of the city isn't as safe as it once was, but enough of the neighbors on my street know each other well enough to alert one another about anything that looks odd. And I'm thrilled about that.

Seeing kids playing on the same street and in the same yards that I played on and in is so cool.

Neighborhood kids used to gather in front of my house to play baseball in the street (it's a side street). I don't know how it happened, but at some point, a bit of tar or rubber embedded itself into the street and we used it as home plate. We used the tree on the side of my yard as first base. We used a Frisbee, a shirt, or an unused baseball glove for second base. And we used another tree on the other side of the street for third base. We also converted the street to a touch football field sometimes. I can't tell you how many nights we spent playing baseball or football out there, but we had a blast.

Most of those kids grew up and moved away and my neighborhood hasn't had many children in it for more than twenty years. But things are changing now. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Waiting in the ATM Line

I was running a few minutes behind schedule yesterday afternoon when I pulled into the ATM line at my bank. A man in a van pulled in just ahead of me, so I was second in line. I thought he might be filling out a deposit slip while sitting at the machine (which is a pet peeve of mine) because it took him so long to insert his debit card, but looking back, I have no idea what took him several minutes to get the process started. But it gets worse.

After two to three minutes of sitting there, he finally inserted his card and punched in a PIN number. Then he touched a few buttons on the screen and I thought it would all be over soon. A guy in a truck pulled in behind me. The guy at the machine hit more buttons on the key pad. It looked like he hit enough numbers to dial China. A few more punches of the buttons on the screen...and then he went back to the key pad. Finally, he appeared to give up, removed his card, and then he put it back in again and he repeated the process twice more. He probably sat there for ten minutes while the line behind him grew longer and longer.

I'm probably about average when it comes to patience in a situation like this, but even the average person would begin to get upset if he had been in my shoes. The guy probably had never used an ATM before or he was low on funds and was trying to figure out how much he had in his account, but common courtesy would prompt most people to see the line forming behind him and maybe pull around to the back of the line so everyone else could get their banking done.

After he finally drove off, I wondered if I should have offered to help him rather than get frustrated. It's probably not smart to approach someone at an ATM machine though. Maybe I should have had more compassion, but where do you draw the line between compassion and his lack of respect for everyone else's time?

Blake Wins in Five Sets

For those of you who aren't tennis fans, I hope you can tolerate my enthusiasm about the US Open over the next couple of weeks. Last year during the tournament, I tried to find other topics to post about, but my head was always in the tournament so I'm thinking--why fight it?

Night One of the US Open was everything a tennis fan could hope for--a five set match that goes past midnight that involves two hard playing Americans; one who is in the prime of his career and one who is just 19. James Blake outlasted youngster Donald Young in a match that didn't start out all that well. The first three sets were played at a high level, but the fourth and fifths sets more than made up for it.

Blake had a two sets to one lead going into the fourth, but Young raised the level of his game and hit some marvelous shots to take the set and push the match to the fifth set. That's when both players seemed to be at their best. Fans were allowed to moved down closer to the action and that always makes for an electrifying environment during late night matches. Blake finally broke Young's serve in the ninth game of the set and he served out the match.

I'm hoping that this was just the first of several five set matches that will be played under the lights. As I said in my post yesterday, the USA network always stays with these matches even though they often go way beyond their scheduled time, and the environment that it creates is second to none in my opinion.

2008 US Open

The 2008 US Open tennis tournament starts today and I'm stoked. I try to plan my work schedule around this event every year and I've done a decent job of doing it this year.

Unfortunately this is the last time the event will be televised on the USA network. ESPN won the rights to the event starting next year. The USA network began carrying the US Open back in 1984 – the year I graduated from high school. I don't remember what year I started watching it, but I remember the 1990 Open, so it had to be late 80s.

I love the USA network coverage for so many reasons. First, the US Open is the main event on the network each night, so if it is 11:00 PM in New York and a great match is still going on, USA stays with the coverage. I'm guessing that ESPN won't be so quick to stay with the matches, given the way they have handled the first three majors this year.

During the French Open, ESPN cut away for the evening during a third set in match in the late rounds. That didn't make me happy. Besides, I love the commentators on USA. Not so much on ESPN. Sounds like John McEnroe will make the transition to ESPN next year, so at least that's something.

At least USA network has it for one more year. I'll enjoy it while I can.

One match I'll be paying attention to is Fabrice Santoro vs. Andy Roddick in the first round. Fabrice is one of my favorite players (for reasons I wrote about here) and last I heard, he plans to retire at the end of the 2008 season. I'll really miss watching him play.

One of the first things I looked at when I printed the men's draw this year was whether James Blake had a chance to play Fernando Gonzalez. They just played each other at the Olympics and Blake was quite unhappy with Gonzalez. (You can read more about it here if you are interested.) Unfortunately, they are in opposite halves of the draw so the only way they could play each other would be in the finals--unlikely, but what a final it would be.

This is the first time since his rise to the top that Roger Federer will not be seeded number one. Rafael Nadal took that away from him earlier this year and the tennis world seems to be holding their breath in hopes of a final similar to what we saw at Wimbledon between these two players. I'm not convinced that either one of them will make it to the final. Roger isn't playing his best tennis and Rafa has never looked good on the hard courts.

Personally, I'm rooting for James Blake, Andy Roddick, and Mardy Fish, but I have a feeling that Novak Djokovic is going to break through and win it all.

On the women's side, I'm pulling for Ana Ivanovic and I think she's going to win it. She'll have to contend with one or both Williams' sisters to get through to the finals, but I think she's capable. I wouldn't be surprised to see her play Jelena Jankovic in the finals and Ana just has too much game for Jankovic to overcome (Ivanovic is 7-1 in her career against Jankovic).

If I'm a little slow answering email or in writing posts over the next two weeks, you'll know why.

So, who are you rooting for? What are your predictions?

Joseph Hall: Elvis Impersonator

If you are receiving this post via Feedblitz, you may want to click the link to read this post at the blog so you can see the video clips I've included.

Speaking of Elvis, there's an Elvis impersonator who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, which is just about 60 miles from here I live. He's 23 years old and his name is Joe Hall. You may have seen him on the television show America's Got Talent. He really is an incredible talent. Here's a clip from the NBC website showing him impersonating a young version of Elvis:


My local newspaper did a story about him a couple of days ago. He has aspirations of either becoming an actor or a singer who performs his own music. He's surprisingly, but wisely, concerned about losing his identity while impersonating someone else though. During a recent concert, someone in the crowd asked him about Sharon Osbourne (one of the judges on America's Got Talent) and Hall said this:

"There are so many secrets about Hollywood," he replied. "I signed my life away."

The audience -- unaware of the potential irony of his joke -- roared. Hall knows a contract means TV time and perhaps even fame, but he could lose himself in an unreal world.

He's willing to risk it -- he can count on his family to keep him grounded. He has big dreams that don't include Elvis -- acting or recording non-Presley tunes.

I can't imagine having the presence of mind that Hall does at the age of 23. It's impressive to see him counting on his family to keep him grounded. But I wonder if he hasn't tapped into a universal problem--one that exists beyond the stage. Whenever we pretend to be someone we are not, we risk losing ourselves.