Moneyball

We went to see the movie Moneyball recently. We haven't been to many movies in the last couple of years, but I wanted to see this one. I have followed Moneyball and some of the precepts behind it for a long time - one of the websites I frequent is actually mentioned in the book. Despite this enthusiasm, I was pretty dubious when I heard they were making a movie out of the book. It didn't seem like something that would translate well to the big screen. However, I was probably going to see it anyways, and it ended up getting some good reviews.
Lo and behold, it turned out to be a really good movie. Indeed, it might be one of my favourite sports movies ever, simply because it's different from most sports movies. It doesn't climax with a big game for the team. The filmmakers didn't change history to create an unambiguous ending or make Billy Beane, the protagonist, look better. It tells the story of how new ideas began to infiltrate a conservative industry and the conflict this caused, and it tells it in an intelligent manner.
It wasn't a perfect movie, of course. Certain facts were changed in order to better suit the narrative scope of the movie (the person Jonah Hill's character was based on arrived in Oakland long before the events depicted in the movie). Key factors in building those successful teams in Oakland were left out (most notably their strong starting pitching).
Moneyball is a book and now a movie, but it's also become a symbol for all kinds of ideas and theories in the world of sports. If you poke around Internet sports discussions, it's easy to find heated arguments about "Moneyball". In many cases, it's obvious that one or more of the participants hasn't read the book, but the term has come to mean many things.
In part this is because the subject matter touches on a lot of different areas: baseball, of course, but also meritocracy vs. cronyism, quantitative analysis vs. anecdotal experience, the way people embrace, reject or fight new ideas, and even the idea of winning and losing. The movie doesn't delve into all of these questions in detail, but neither does it shy away from them. Is Billy Beane a winner? At the end of the movie it's not clear. I think the filmmaker's willingness to tackle the question and not create a neat answer out of thin air is what makes this a strong movie.
As a side note, after the movie I went back to my parent's place, dug out my box of old sports cards, and found the '87 Billy Beane card. Sweet! My mom didn't think he looked much like Brad Pitt, though.

Regionals

Last weekend we drove up to Claremont so I could watch my college cross country team run in their regional championships. It was the first CMS cross country meet I had been to in many years. It felt great to be there again. Both the men's team and the women's team did pretty well. The women's race didn't have much drama, as CMS had six runners near the front of the race and ended up winning by almost a hundred points. They went on to get fourth at nationals this weekend, which is as good as a CMS cross country team has ever done. The men's regional race was much more exciting, with several teams looking strong at some point in the race. CMS ended up a close third. That was short of an automatic qualifying spot, but they ended up getting selected for nationals as an at-large team.
The meet was held on a course on Pomona's campus. We never had a meet there when I was in school. I'm not sure how I would have liked running on it, but it was good for spectators as the runners made several loops. It also meant that we could wander through the CMC campus and see what's changed. Quite a bit, actually, as there appeared to be some new buildings, including a dorm I don't remember. According to a tour guide who happened to be leading a campus tour as we walked by, it's called Claremont Hall because nobody has donated enough money to have the building named after them yet. I'm collecting my pennies, so stay tuned for the announcement of "Jason Hall".
-Jason

America's Cup

I read that they were having America's Cup races in San Diego harbor, so we went down to watch this afternoon. They weren't the big full-size boats from the regular competition. This was a series of head-to-head races and they were using smaller boats. We were able to walk out to the end of the pier to get a great view of the action. The course organizers even staged the event so that the boats had to do a turn-around about 100 feet off the end of the pier.
It was the first time I had ever watched a sailboat race, and at first I was a bit confused when they started going in opposite directions. They had a spectator tent and were showing a TV feed, so we went in a watched one race there. They showed a lot of graphics of the course map and the commentators explained some of the strategies, which helped make sense of it all.
picasa site

Women's college volleyball and tide pools

We've been doing a little exploring of San Diego and all the things to do here. A few weeks ago we went to a women's volleyball match at the University of San Diego. USD is actually a nationally ranked team, but they seemed a little lethargic to start the match. They even dropped a game, which was a little surprising, but that seemed to wake them up and they won comfortably in the fourth game. The volleyball probably wasn't as good as the professionals in Japan, but it was fun. It wasn't hard to get a seat, either.
After the match we went to Ocean Beach. We had been in the neighbourhood before but never on the beach itself. It was nice enough; probably not as nice as Mission or Coronado, but it was an acceptable beach. The best part might have been the tide pools at the end. We found several little creatures in there. We also saw a seal when we walked out on the pier. It was a great San Diego day.
-Jason
There are a few more pictures on the picasa site.

party!

We had a wonderful wedding/welcome home party last month. It was great to see all of our friends and family. The photos are now on the picasa site. Enjoy!

Picnic

We decided to extend our wedding party weekend by having a picnic the day before. Since we hadn't seen most people in at least a couple of years, we wanted to maximize the time we had to spend with everyone, so we organized the picnic. We also ordered up some beautiful weather: it was a perfect day to be enjoying the outdoors. We had a bounce house and an inflatable joust, both of which were big hits. Chelsey and I battled on the joust, with each of us claiming some victories. It turned out to be a great day and we loved getting to see everyone.
-Jason

There are some pictures and video on the picasa site (you have to look back to Oct. 8). Chelsey was busy and didn't take any photos, so we only have some that our friends took. If anyone else has some photos, please send them to Chelsey and she will add them.

house tour

Kim (Jason's sister) and Michal bought a new house! We visited last weekend to help them unpack (and play with Tessa). It is a gorgeous house and we are very happy for them. Plus, they are only an hour and a half away. There are some pictures, and a house tour video that we made for Grandma, on the picasa site. The videos are the last items in the album.