Summer Lovin’ and then some …

Had a busy weekend. Here’s what went down:

• Went to Lucas’ first birthday party near the Hippo Park in Riverside. The Ro’s really knew how to throw a party as it seemed like the whole Upper West Side decided to show up. Good times, good mac & cheese and such great parents for an awesome little boy.

Nice park, even better shade

• Celebrated my dear sister’s b-day, where we hit the driving range at Chelsea Pier, ate at an awesome restaurant, Anthos, and then had drinks at the Stone Rose in the Time Warner building. Beautiful view and it was fun hanging out with my sister and her friends.

Anti-Tiger

Before the meal …

View from Stone Rose

• The next day, went to church and then drove down to Piscataway, NJ to celebrate my friend’s engagement party. It was more like a block party as there were probably about 150 people there to show appreciation to Shane & Kimiko. The food was awesome, ranging from ribs to crabs to honey wings to pork & beans to cornbread … and they even provided Hoegaarden.

The lovely couple

The nice spread

The man behind the spread

Some old pals …

Sharing a laugh …

The future hubby to be

Jaden playing with a friend

By the time we got home, we were exhausted, but it was a nice way to spend 48 hours. This coming weekend is a trip to Chicago, which means of course, deep dish pizza, chili dogs, magnificent mile and some golfing.

***Also, please visit this page … it’s what I want for my birthday!

If you want to see the amazing trailer, click here.

More Olympic Controversy … Underage Gymnasts?

“Hello world, we won gold medals and we’re not even in middle school!”

Anyone watching women gymnastics last night probably uttered these same three thoughts:

- How do they do that?

- I don’t understand the scoring

- The Chinese girls look like 10 year olds

I know it’s all speculation, but sometimes you have to call a skunk a skunk, and something stinks. To pour more fuel on this controversy fire, Martha Karolyi, the team coordinator of the U.S. women’s team, keeps on sharing her theories to the general public. Most recently, she noticed a tooth missing on one of the Chinese gymnast, and made the assumption that her adult tooth has yet to come in. Is that too farfetched?

Last night, as my wife and I watched the U.S. women’s team stumble and the Chinese women’s team capitalize on those miscues; I couldn’t help my wife get visibly distraught. Her observations paralleled Karolyi’s.

- “They look 10 years old.”

- “No way they hit puberty yet.”

- “There’s no curves, no sign of teen-hood.”

- “Jaden [our three-year-old son] looks more developed than some of these girls.”

The last one might be a stretch, but after finding out some of the heights and weights of these Chinese girls, it’s a close stretch. One girl is 4 foot 6 and weighs in at 68 pounds. Jaden is 3 foot 4 and weighs in at 40 pounds.

According to this NY Times article, the average height and weight of the Chinese women gymnasts are 4 foot 9 and 77 pounds. If China is not falsifying the age, then at the very least we have to look into malnourishment and health issues. This story is not dying down any time soon, especially with China getting a bad rap about the Milli Vanilli lip-synching and the refusal to discuss the current political atmosphere in China.

We almost tricked the world.

At the very least, the Olympics bring us this phenomenon.

I may drink water, but I eat gold.

Spain Basketball Team Does Beijing Wrong

Here’s a reason to not like the Spain basketball team. Also, NBA players like Pau Gasol and Rudy Fernandez are on the roster and in the picture. I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten more press. Here’s the image, go to the story for more.

Not well played …

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/10/olympics2008.olympicsbasketball