Rick Riordan Is At It Again

All the man does is write entertaining, high quality books for kids, young adults and 30 somethings who are recapturing their childhood.  In The Throne of Fire we are once again reading the transcript of a recording made by Carter and Sadie Kane.  Carter and Sadie are descendants of the Egyptian Pharaohs, in fact, 2 of the most powerful Pharaohs, and they are also magicians.  The problem is, other magicians think they are outlaws because their father released trapped Egyptian gods back into the world.  He did this to save the world from the return of Apophis, the most evil of all the ancient gods.  Carter and Sadie believe that their father is right, that the old gods of Egypt are the solution to stopping the rise of Apophis, and they are bent on seeing this mission through.  This time they have the help of a few other junior magicians who answered the call they put out with their first message in The Red Pyramid.

The Throne of Fire is another masterfully crafted story from Rick Riordan, who is my favorite author.  As this is the 2nd book in The Kane Chronicles series, we have already met our narrators, Carter and Sadie.  Each character tells about 2 chapters before "switching" with the other narrator.  Riordan varies the storytelling style enough that you really believe you are reading 2 different views of the events.  It's a really cool way to read a story.

At first, I wasn't thrilled with this book.  It took me a while to remember what I read in The Red Pyramid, which is the problem with only releasing 1 book per year.  Once it all came back to me though, I thoroughly enjoyed the 450ish pages of this book and really look forward to the final book, due out next year.  If you haven't picked up The Kane Chronicles, by Rick Riordan yet, give these books a shot.  I think you'll really enjoy them.

What Do You Expect?

Yesterday, 22 year old Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland won the U.S. Open with a record score of 16 under par, capping off the 5th straight major victory for a non-American born player...also a record.  McIlroy, who plays with an interlocking grip by the way, won by 8 shots over Australian Jason Day.  Robert Garrigus and Kevin Chappell were low Americans, finishing 10 shots back and in a tie for 3rd.  Garrigus and Chappell are not exactly household names.

Ever since Phil Mickelson turned 40 and developed Psoriatic Arthritis, and Tiger frittered away his career, the sports media has been searching for golf's next superstar.  Sure, Phil still wins every once in a while, and Tiger may still make it back, but he'll never be the same, so the media has been on the lookout for the next big thing.  Rory McIlroy may be that next big thing, but there's a problem with that, according to some in the sports media...he's not American.  Right now, most of the top 10 golfers in the world are from Europe, not from the good ol' U.S. of A.  In fact, it's not obvious who the next great American player is, and I ask, what do you expect?

For the last 10-15 years in the U.S., we've pampered our best golfers.  Most of the top teachers have created Golf Academies where the best teenage golfers attend high school and focus on golf.  In a lot of circumstances, kids leave their families to attend these academies, or if they are lucky enough to have a parent with them, it's only one parent.  At these academies, the kids receive great golf instruction and get told over and over again how great they are.  They play in tournaments, but even if they don't win, they are told how great they are.  Then these kids are recruited by colleges and told again how great they are by the college coaches.  While it is true that some of the kids don't succeed at college golf, those that do leave still thinking they are super great and that life as a pro is going to be easy.

Then they get on the mini-tours and they realize how good the other guys are, and they don't know how to handle it.  I would submit that they don't know how to handle it because they've spent a lot of time away from their families and have never had to face adversity.  On the other hand, many of the best golfer's in the rest of the world have to scrape their way to the top.  McIlroy had a great family and his dad is a really good golfer.  This definitely helped him, but so did playing golf with his dad and learning to win against the guys at his club.  Take another example...Y.E. Yang from South Korea is the 2009 PGA Champion and finished T-3rd at the U.S. Open.  Yang didn't even pick up a club until he was 19.  Or look at Yang's fellow countryman, K.J. Choi.  Choi learned to play as a teenager and had to drive 3 hours to even get to a course.  Face it, the rest of the world is just tougher than the young golfers are in the United States.

If we want to find the next great American golfer, we need look for the kid who was raised by both his parents, played regular high school golf, and didn't have everything handed to him.  I don't know who that kid is, but I suspect we haven't heard of him yet.  I think we're in for a few years of the rest of the world dominating golf until some young American kid steps up and proves he is ready to consistently compete with the big guys in Europe.  Until then, as American golf fans, we have to put up with what we've created...a generation of kids who don't know how to handle adversity.  Come to think of it...this seems to be true in just about every aspect of American life these days.

And that, my friends, completes my grumpy old man blog.

I Love that Sound

Yesterday, my 10 year old and I went to the 25th Annual Quad Cities Air Show.  I haven't been to an airshow in about 11 or 12 years.  When I was a kid, we used to go to the air show at Ellsworth AFB every year.  I've seen the US Navy's Blue Angels, the USAF's Thunderbirds and the US Army's Golden Knights Parachute team.  I was a lucky, lucky kid.

The Quad Cities Air Show is one of the best air shows around...at least that's what I've heard.  They had a lot of top notch entertainment yesterday, but the best was the Blue Angels.  I was so thrilled that they are back in action after being grounded recently. 

For those who haven't seen a Blue Angels show, they start off with their C-130 (a.k.a Fat Albert) doing some flight demonstrations, including a steep descent.  Fat Albert carries their maintenace crews and ground support equipment.  I love C-130s, so this was really cool for me.  Then, after Fat Albert lands, the 6 US Navy's F-18 Hornets that make up the Blue Angels team show up.  Airplanes 1-4 fly the entire show in formation, while airplanes 5 and 6 do solo maneuvers.  I took way too many pictures, which I may post at some point.  The highlight of the show for me is the "sneak attack".  I'm not sure if that's what they call it.  Basically they distract you with 4 of the airplanes doing something, and then one of the solo airplanes comes in from behind the crowd, and you don't hear it until it's right over you.  This was the maneuver that got the team in trouble a couple of months ago because they flew it too low. 

The show was great, and I love the jet engine noise.  We got to see an F-15 as well...so loud, so wonderful.  My 10 year old was thrilled with the noise and the demonstrations.  It was so great to see him so excited.  When I was a kid, it was going to airshows that got me interested in aerospace and led me to a job in the aerospace industry.  I don't know if yesterday's airshow will ever lead to anything like that for my son, and it's not really my choice.  All I know is that it was so much fun to see him excited, probably like I was at that age.  For me, that was even better than the Blue Angels.

If you ever get an opportunity to go to an airshow with the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds, take it.  You won't regret it.