That's what I found when I went to peek in on her the other night before bed.

Zoe is kicking ass, and taking names.

Today is the first day of kindergarten! Hard to believe she's already old enough for that, but she doesn't seem to be having any trouble believing it. She's so pumped up. She's got her new shoes, her Ariel lunchbox, and she couldn't wait. She had a tiny moment of hesitation when there was a clerical snafu which resulted in her not having a hook to hang her lunchbox, but she got over it quickly. She already has a best friend in her new class. Unfortunately, it is a stuffed animal of Babar the Elephant, which she talks about constantly. But even before she entered the classroom, she had struck up conversation with a few other girls about (go figure) Disney princesses, and they were getting along swimmingly.

As I was walking out, and peeking in other classrooms, it was like a slightly toned-down trauma ward. Lots of crying. Lots of panicked, lost faces. And as we passed by Zoe's classroom before leaving, she was sitting on her square with Babar chatting up a storm with other kids, complete with hand gestures. She's so much more of an adventurer than either of her parents. Good for her, really.

My new car arrived. I ordered it 3 or 4 months ago by now... I've lost track of time. But after being told on Friday that it had arrived in the port in San Diego, and would be leaving the port on the 23rd, I got a call yesterday saying that it was at the dealership. Go figure.

It is lots of fun. Driving it home from the dealer at rush hour it was a little hard to appreciate, but I just took it for a spin up 280 as the sun was going down, and that was more like it. Much zippier than my old car. It will take a bit of getting used to; it feels a lot more... I dunno... substantial? than my last car. I think technically it is smaller, but it feels bigger. When driving with the top down, I feel more surrounded. I feel like I'm sitting lower down in the car, though I suspect I'm actually sitting higher. For lack of a better way to put it, it feels less like a sports car and more like a "regular" car. It is a nice compromise, I think. I still get my convertible, but it is a bit more practical.

There is an album of photos here, for starters. I now realize I didn't take any pictures with the top up, which probably says something about my priorities. I also should take some to show the sunroof. Yes, it is a convertible with a sunroof. Weird, wild stuff. Perhaps the weirdest thing about the car, however, is that no one knows it exists. VW seems to have decided it would be a shrewd move to not advertise the car in the slightest. Most people I know have never seen one or heard of it, though the reviews I read were pretty uniformly great. Once people discovered the car, they loved it. In the 3 or 4 months I was waiting for mine to arrive, I think I saw a grand total of 2 other Eos'.

So anyone in the market for a used 323ci convertible?

A week or so ago, a friend pointed me at this article, which purported to list 101 things every sports fan should experience before s/he dies. I figured I was a pretty big sports fan, so I ran through the list, and concluded that I had done... 5. And a few of those were iffy.

• #6. I went to Spring Training in Florida years ago.
• #42. I took artistic license here. I may never have actually sat courtside at an NBA game, but I've now sat two rows off the floor for a ton of games. I declare that counts.
• #76. Almost certain I saw part of a beach volleyball tournament years ago in Santa Cruz.
• #91. I've seen plenty of Little League games, both as a kid and an adult.
• #100. I took Katie to see the Harlem Globetrotters years ago.

I felt a little better when I found that the friend who sent me the list, also a huge sports fan, had only done 8. And another big sports fan friend told me yesterday he's done 11 (I have a friend who has attended the Calgary Stampede, apparently).

I briefly considered going on a quest to do all 101, and quickly decided that was impractical, particularly given that I'm really skeptical I'd enjoy some of the things on the list. But I did feel stupid that I've had pretty good chances to do some of the others, and didn't act on it. I lived a few blocks from Stanford when the World Cup was there, and never tried to get a ticket. I went to school in Rhode Island for 4 years and never went to Fenway, nevermind for a Sox/Yankees game. And a few others.

So after all that, apparently I'm slow to learn, and it was only late this weekend it hit me that I was doing it again. I'd made no effort at all to get a ticket to the MLB All-Star game, which was in town. So yesterday I decided better late than never, scrambled like crazy, and managed to get myself a pretty decent ticket at 150% of face value. Could have been worse. Check #43 off the list. And I'm glad I did; it really was quite a spectacle, and a lot of fun. As much as anything, stupid or not, baseball is a very sentimental thing for me. My Dad got sick when I was 14, which by now seems a loooong time ago. It is often hard for me to remember what my father was like before he got sick, but most of the memories I have revolve around baseball in one way or another. So I spent a lot of yesterday grinning at old memories, appreciating baseball for more than just the game on the field, and wishing my Dad could have been there.

I ended up taking lots of pictures, which you can find here. Some specific notes on the game:

• I knew I liked both Ichiro and Reyes. It was really a treat to watch both of them batting leadoff and pretty much kicking ass. If you have either one of those guys as your leadoff hitter, you have nothing to complain about. Ichiro's inside the park homer was a lot of fun. It wasn't even close, and he actually didn't start running hard until he had rounded first.
• Carlos Lee hit a foul ball that hit the facing of the third deck pretty much straight back from where I was sitting. It was pretty breathtaking.
• Similarly, I took a walk before the game out to the 502 sign where Vlad Guerrero hit the longest homer in the home run derby (his ball actually went 503). Then I looked back at home plate and just laughed. Crazy stuff.
• I left half an inning early to make sure I got on a train home, as I didn't want to get stranded in the city. The line for the train was bananas, so I think I chose wisely. But I did miss Soriano's home run. On the other hand, my big regret in doing so was that I was sure I'd miss Pujols batting, and for some bizarre reason his own coach left him on the bench for the whole game.
• I saw Trevor Hoffman throw back-to-back pitches that were clocked at 74 and 95 miles an hour. A 21 mile an hour difference. That's just not fair. And as if I needed more evidence these guys are really something, the 95 mile an hour follow-on got smacked to the wall. Apparently it wasn't tricky enough.
• I was pretty tickled how many of the players from my fantasy keeper league were in the game, or even starting. ARod. Reyes. Griffey. Ichiro. Magglio. And yet I'm in 4th place. Sigh.
• A friend reminded me - what a cannon on Vlad. When he gunned ARod down at the plate, my jaw dropped. But it wasn't even just that throw. He had 2 or 3 opportunities to let loose. If only that guy could hit...
• Prior to the game was possibly the most brutal promotional event I've ever seen. Some guy gets 3 chances to hit a ball off a tee for distance. If he gets one 220 feet in the air, he gets $100,000. 250 feet? $250,000. 280 feet? $1,000,000. So I'm figuring with 3 shots, he really has pretty good odds of walking away with some money. Then I saw him swing a bat. Oh dear god. First swing trickled off the tee about 3 feet. Second swing went about to the pitchers mound. Third barely reached the outfield. If nothing else, if you knew you were that bad a hitter, wouldn't you just throw your back out swinging as hard as you could, and hope you got lucky on contact? He barely swung the bat. I can't imagine how he possibly thought he'd reach 220 feet. Embarrassing for the guy, and for Taco Bell. Just awful.
  

So lots of you are sports fans; can any of you top Rick's score of 11?