Liz Christy garden / cradle of urban gardening

The roots of (modern) urban gardening can be traced to the Liz Christy Garden on New York's Lower East Side. (Some good 70's photos of urban hippies getting their hands dirty). When I visited, the cherry blossoms were going off.

Architecture / 560 Mission

I ride down Mission Street everyday, and I always admire the JP Morgan Chase building at 560 Mission between First and Second Street. Most buildings in downtown SF are earth-toned, and riding among them can feel like flashing back to the Gap in the early 90's -- putty, mauve, beige, taupe, moss. In contrast, the Morgan building has black steel-and-glass facade with a greenish tint, pleasantly blending erector-set orderliness with an aquarium-like glow. Today I found out it was designed by Cesar Pelli, aka the guy/firm behind the Petronas Towers. Each architect in this review of recent architecture in the SF Business Journal describes 560 Mission as their favorite recent SF project.

Architecture / CIGNA HQ

Located among in suburban Hartford, CT's office parks, strip malls and golf courses, the corporate headquarters of CIGNA are unexpectedly cool. Reason 1: A ROBOT delivers mail to each department. Reason 2: The building itself is low-lying and sleek, with green-tinted windows that, on sunny days, disappear into the sky. It was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, who also designed the stunning Beinecke Library at Yale and won the Pritzker Prize in 1988, and it's surrounded by gardens, courtyards and sculpture by landscaping badass Isamu Noguchi. A couple of years ago, CIGNA considered tearing the building down and selling the land to a golf course developer, but architectural preservationists intervened. CIGNA staffmembers often joked about this, the subtext being, "Can you believe that anyone would want to preserve this?" [A NYT article from 2001 details the debate]

UPDATE: The Hartford Courant recently published a grateful editorial about CIGNA's decision to preserve the Bunshaft building.

Art / CIA HQ

Outside CIA headquarters, there's an installation called "Kryptos," a large metal sheet containing a series of characters that has perplexed puzzlers since it was unveiled 10 years ago. Today, the NYT reports that the artist mistakenly omitted a character.

Mini-post in the house

Just checked out a new WP plugin called Minipost. Let's see what it do.

Kansas basketball / Another early exit

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHEN WILL THEY STOP TORTURING ME?

Once again, the Jayhawks exited the NCAA tournament in the first round; this time, it was a 77-73 loss to Bradley, marking the second year in a row in which the heavily-favored Hawks were up-ended by a lower seed.

What the hell went wrong? Bradley came out loose and snappy; the Hawks looked spooked and tight. A couple of unlucky early possessions tipped the momentum toward Bradley, and you could see the Hawks get somewhat prematurely discouraged and frustrated. Up until the very late second half, the vaunted Jayhawk defense -- which had created easy offensive opportunities all year -- struggled to keep up with Bradley's relentless inside-out attack. All year, Kansas had locked down their opponents, forcing bad shots and racing it right back up their opponents' backside. This time, they played Bradley's game for almost 40 minutes.

The most confounding part was that they seemed so out of sync. The stars from the Texas game fell victim to the fumbles and hiccups that characterized the early season. Julian Wright disappeared for minutes on end; Mario Chalmers couldn't get anything to fall in the first half; Sasha Kaun's shots got some tough treatment by the rim, and then, man, what happened? And JHawk, well, you just knew that he wouldn't repeat the 4-for-5 shooting from three point range. Without RussRob, the Hawks would have never been in the game.

Nevertheless, late in the second half, Self went with three guards, and the sudden, swarming defensive pressure paralyzed Bradley's offense. Chalmers and Robinson created turnovers, shredded Bradley's defense and -- BAM -- we got a quick glimpse of what could have been a 25-point cakewalk on another night. The Hawks just totally overwhelmed the Bradley backcourt for the last 7 or 8 minutes, and improbably the game was within reach.

Then, heartbreak. The Hawks created another turnover, and brought the ball upcourt, down by three with a little over a minute left. Hawkins comes around a screen. He's got an open look. DUDE, KNOCK IT DOWN! It looks good when it leaves his hands. The ball is arc-ing toward the basket. I'm in a hotel room in Albuquerque, standing on the bed with my arms raised in three-point/field goal formation, and I'm remembering the Missouri game from 2003 when Aaron Miles hit a long, contested three as time ran out to win the game, WHICH I ALSO WATCHED FROM A HOTEL ROOM! SYNCHRONICITY! and I'm not breathing, and my heart is pounding GO IN for God's sake! NO! Rebound! NOOO!

Alas.

Was it worse than last year? I would say yes. Last year's team partially imploded in the late season, limped out of the Big 12 tournament, and rolled over somewhere en route to their first round game. This year's team, though. I don't think I was the only one who was having visions of the Fab Five dancing in my head. For days after, I mourned both my bracket (in shambles), and what could have been a victory over Pitt, a domination of Memphis, and a rocking good game against UCLA. LSU would have been a problem. Within seven or eight feet of the basket, they were tough; outside of that, inept. Could the Hawks have stopped them enough in the paint for that to matter? Perhaps.

Free WiFi to roll into SF

So apparently Google and Earthlink are teaming up to provide free WiFi service to all of SF (via Gizmodo). While we're still a ways from knowing what this will actually mean -- mainly, will be accessible at 14th and Valencia, third floor apartment? -- it is intriguing to me that Google is involved. Unlike Earthlink, Google has never gouged me, or failed to provide service that I've paid for, or sold my name and home address to direct marketers.

So I guess you could say that I'm hopeful. Maybe someday soon I'll be able to work from Pac Bell (er, I mean, SBC ... er, I mean AT&T) Park, or Buena Vista Park, or the little redwood grove outside the Transamerica building.

Or from my roof. (See the photo).

Kirby Puckett, 1960-2006

In the fall of 1990, I went to see a Twins-Royals game in the Homer Dome. Do I need to mention that the Royals were not contending for a playoff spot? They weren't, and neither were the Twins. There were approximately 1000 people there, but the rare assortment of players on the field has made the game stick in my memory. Royal legend George Brett was locking down a batting title in a third decade.[1] Bo Jackson was about to play his last baseball game at full strength. And Kirby Puckett was in his prime, smiling, clowning, and inspiring even the Royals fans (me and my friends) among the crowd to cheer for him.

My friends and I had an entire left-field section to ourselves, and the Metrodome's infamous acoustics combined with the absence of people provided my friend Adlai with a rare opportunity to ensure that Twins fan favorite Dan Gladden heard his every comment about his mullet. It also afforded us an opportunity to hear Kirby clowning around with people in the center field bleachers. At that point, no one could argue that Puck was anything but a great guy. He was fun; the Twins were good; the Twins infamously fair-weather fans didn't really seem to appreciate him at that moment, but he didn't let it get to him.

A little over a year later, his heroics would propel the Twins to another World Series championship, and his leaping Game 6 catch, combined with the game-winning dinger, would comprise one of the great all-time clutch performances. Everything after that seemed out of character.

[1] At this point, this seems even more remarkable than it did then. Seriously, who else is going to pull that off? Todd Helton in 2011? Maybe, but not likely.

Books / Game of Shadows

I was just watching ESPN's Opening Day coverage of the Braves-Dodgers game, and the conversation between commentator Erik Karros (wasn't he Rookie of the Year like 5 years ago?) and Rick Sutcliffe turned to steroids. Karros couldn't contain himself. He blustered and rambled for a while, criticizing those who demanded an investigation, and basically rehashed Mark McGwire's non-denial denial to a Senate sub-committee: Steroids were abused in the past; the league has adopted a stricter policy; let's all move on. The message was unoriginal -- a lot of current players don't want to dwell on this unsavory development -- but the air of defensiveness mixed with disdain seemed oddly reminscent of another guilty, defiant person -- Donald Rumsfeld.

Anyway, over the past couple of days, I tore through Game of Shadows, the recently published steroids expose by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. After a month of PR build-up and published excerpts, there weren't many surprises:

• Bonds availed himself of steroids. One might say, a buttload of steroids.


• So did Marion Jones.


• They're both liars.


• So are a lot of professional athletes.

Bonds is the big story in Game of Shadows. If you couldn't already tell by his cartoonishly swollen neck/head and his late-career power explosion, Bonds hasn't been playing fair. He admitted to a grand jury that he allowed his trainer (a known juicer) to place droplets of an "unknown" chemical under his tongue, and to rub an "unknown" cream on his joints. Bonds thought that these were legal supplements -- the drops were "flaxseed oil" -- yeah, he actually said that -- and he implied that he'd never injected anything. Uh-huh, yeah. I'm a fan of the flaxseed oil, and I can testify that it doesn't make your head become like 5x bigger. Plus, Bonds has always been a control freak. Is it even remotely possible that he didn't bother finding out what his trainer was sticking in his mouth?

The book reveals the Bonds was on a steroid regimen that included more than "flaxseed oil," making it seem even more likely that Bonds perjured himself in front of the grand jury. Sources close to him indicate that he was on all sorts of injectable crap, including Decadurabolin (in the butt) and human growth hormone (in the stomach). He wanted us to believe that it was all free weights and sprints and vitamins, but it makes a little more sense that there was some secret sauce in the mix.

A personal note: Barry, dude, seriously. Just freakin admit it. You're like a little kid sitting in a pile of cookie crumbs, crying and claiming that you didn't eat any cookies. It's undignified, really. Say "I took steroids because I wanted to win, because everyone else was, because it's what I had to do." Fans understand competitiveness, and you're a competitive guy, and steroids weren't against the rules anyway. So just fess up, you big baby. At some point, you could even ask for our forgiveness. I mean, it's possible. You always claim that you're not given the respect you deserve. Here's your chance to earn it.