DPRK & Arnold

1) Emailed a friend to say that I won't be able to join him on his planned trip to the DPRK. It's too easy for me to imagine us detained as spies, then held as low-value bargaining chips in a less-than-healthful Pyeongyang prison. Not that we wouldn't be treated humanely, of course. He's going for 6 days or so, in September, and I wish him the very best.

2) Hatching a plan to make a documentary film about an 8-man high school football game to be held Friday, 22 September 2006 in Arnold, Nebraska. Arnold will be playing Thedford, and my dad and his crew are the referees. Thedford is just at the southern tip of the Sand Hills [click that link—the flickr photos are cool]. Drive far enough north, and you'll get to Valentine, where my mother grew up.

Practicing violin

THANE: It's still scratchy. You need to use more bow. Look—you're using about 1/6 of your bow. I could change the rest of your bow to concrete—you wouldn't know it. The staccato, it's OK. But the slurs, the crescendos. You've got to use more bow. Listen to the CD, it doesn't sound like that.

COLE: It's not easy!

THANE: [Sincerely] I know. What were the four things Denise said?

COLE: Vibrato, bow speed, crescendo/decrescendo, and flexing.

THANE: You're doing vibrato, and the flexing.

COLE: Yes.

THANE: But you're supposed to do all four!

COLE: OK

[tries it again]

THANE: Yes!

At the pool

THANE: You're swimming OK. Do you want to go to the deep end? You're not clinging to me like a barnacle—and besides, you can't touch the bottom here, anyway, right? Let's go to the deep end.

OWEN: Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Can we swim after the tennis lessons?

THANE: Maybe. Why not now? We could do it now.

OWEN: I don't have the courage.

THANE: Well, I could go with you.

OWEN: OK, let's go.

THANE: Oh—here comes Cole, and now it's Adult Swim. So we can do it tomorrow.

OWEN: OK—Let's do it tomorrow.