Thursday, December 29, 2005
Forty-two degrees
The interesting fact about rainbow, as discovered by French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, is that the angle from the level of your eyes to the top of the rainbow is always about 42 degrees.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
zz The Chosen One
[122 People]
The Chosen One
Tiger Woods was raised to believe that his destiny is not only to be the greatest golfer ever but also to change the world. Will the pressures of celebrity grind him down first?
by Gary Smith
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photograph by Michael O'Neill
IT WAS ordinary. It was oh so ordinary. It was a salad, a dinner roll, a steak, a half potato, a slice of cake, a clinking fork, a podium joke, a ballroom full of white-linen-tablecloth conversation. Then a thick man with tufts of white hair rose from the head table. His voice trembled and his eyes teared and his throat gulped down sobs between words, and everything ordinary was cast out of the room.
He said, "Please forgive me ... but sometimes I get very emotional ... when I talk about my son.... My heart ... fills with so ... much ... joy ... when I realize ... that this young man ... is going to be able ... to help so many people.... He will transcend this game ... and bring to the world ... a humanitarianism ... which has never been known before. The world will be a better place to live in ... by virtue of his existence ... and his presence.... I acknowledge only a small part in that ... in that I know that I was personally selected by God himself ... to nurture this young man ... and bring him to the point where he can make his contribution to humanity.... This is my treasure.... Please accept it ... and use it wisely.... Thank you."
Blinking tears, the man found himself inside the arms of his son and the applause of the people, all up on their feet.
In the history of American celebrity, no father has ever spoken this way. Too many dads have deserted or died before their offspring reached this realm, but mostly they have fallen mute, the father's vision exceeded by the child's, leaving the child to wander, lost, through the sad and silly wilderness of modern fame.
Earl Woods
Earl says he didn't discover his own destiny until Tiger was born.
photograph by Bill Frakes
So let us stand amidst this audience at last month's Fred Haskins Award dinner to honor America's outstanding college golfer of 1996, and take note as Tiger and Earl Woods embrace, for a new manner of celebrity is taking form before our eyes. Regard the 64-year-old African-American father, arm upon the superstar's shoulder, right where the chip is so often found, declaring that this boy will do more good for the world than any man who ever walked it. Gaze at the 20-year-old son, with the blood of four races in his veins, not flinching an inch from the yoke of his father's prophecy but already beginning to scent the complications. The son who stormed from behind to win a record third straight U.S. Amateur last August, turned pro and rang up scores in the 60s in 21 of his first 27 rounds, winning two PGA Tour events as he doubled and tripled the usual crowds and dramatically changed their look and age.
Now turn. Turn and look at us, the audience, standing in anticipation of something different, something pure. Quiet. Just below the applause, or within it, can you hear the grinding? That's the relentless chewing mechanism of fame, girding to grind the purity and the promise to dust. Not the promise of talent, but the bigger promise, the father's promise, the one that stakes everything on the boy's not becoming separated from his own humanity and from all the humanity crowding around him.
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Tida taught Tiger Eastern serenity to complement Earl's fire.
photograph by John Burgess
It's a fitting moment, while he's up there at the head table with the audience on its feet, to anoint Eldrick (Tiger) Woods — the rare athlete to establish himself immediately as the dominant figure in his sport — as Sports Illustrated's 1996 Sportsman of the Year. And to pose a question: Who will win? The machine ... or the youth who has just entered its maw?
Tiger Woods will win. He'll fulfill his father's vision because of his mind, one that grows more still, more willful, more efficient, the greater the pressure upon him grows.
The machine will win because it has no mind. It flattens even as it lifts, trivializes even as it exalts, spreads a man so wide and thin that he becomes margarine soon enough.
Tiger will win because of God's mind. Can't you see the pattern? Earl Woods asks. Can't you see the signs? "Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity," Earl says.
Sports history, Mr. Woods? Do you mean more than Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, more than Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe? "More than any of them because he's more charismatic, more educated, more prepared for this than anyone."
Anyone, Mr. Woods? Your son will have more impact than Nelson Mandela, more than Gandhi, more than Buddha?
"Yes, because he has a larger forum than any of them. Because he's playing a sport that's international. Because he's qualified through his ethnicity to accomplish miracles. He's the bridge between the East and the West. There is no limit because he has the guidance. I don't know yet exactly what form this will take. But he is the Chosen One. He'll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power."
Surely this is lunacy. Or are we just too myopic to see? One thing is certain: We are witnessing the first volley of an epic encounter, the machine at its mightiest confronting the individual groomed all his life to conquer it and turn it to his use. The youth who has been exposed to its power since he toddled onto The Mike Douglas Show at three, the set of That's Incredible! at five, the boy who has been steeled against the silky seduction to which so many before him have succumbed. The one who, by all appearances, brings more psychological balance, more sense of self, more consciousness of possibility to the battlefield than any of his predecessors.
This is war, so let's start with war. Remove the images of pretty putting greens from the movie screen standing near the ballroom's head table. Jungle is what's needed here, foliage up to a man's armpits, sweat trickling down his thighs, leeches crawling up them. Lieut. Col. Earl Woods, moving through the night with his rifle ready, wondering why a U.S. Army public information officer stationed in Brooklyn decided in his mid-30s that he belonged in the Green Berets and ended up doing two tours of duty in Vietnam. Wondering why his first marriage has died and why the three children from it have ended up without a dad around when it's dark like this and it's time for bed — just as Earl ended up as a boy after his own father died. Wondering why he keeps plotting ways to return to the line of fire — "creative soldiering," he calls it — to eyeball death once more. To learn once again about his dark and cold side, the side that enables Earl, as Tiger will remark years later, "to slit your throat and then sit down and eat his dinner."
Oh, yes, Earl is one hell of a cocktail. A little Chinese, a little Cherokee, a few shots of African-American; don't get finicky about measurements, we're making a vat here. Pour in some gruffness and a little intimidation, then some tenderness and some warmth and a few jiggers of old anger. Don't hold back on intelligence. And stoicism. Add lots of stoicism, and even more of responsibility —" the most responsible son of a bitch you've ever seen in your life" is how Earl himself puts it. Top it all with "a bucket of whiskey," which is what he has been known to order when he saunters into a bar and he's in the mood. Add a dash of hyperbole, maybe two, and to hell with the ice, just whir. This is one of those concoctions you're going to remember when morning comes.
Somewhere in there, until a good 15 years ago, there was one other ingredient, the existential Tabasco, the smoldering why? The Thai secretary in the U.S. Army office in Bangkok smelled it soon after she met Earl, in 1967. "He couldn't relax," says Kultida (Tida) Woods. "Searching for something, always searching, never satisfied. I think because both his parents died when he was young, and he didn't have Mom and Dad to make him warm. Sometimes he stayed awake till three or four in the morning, just thinking."
In a man so accustomed to exuding command and control, in a Green Beret lieutenant colonel, why? has a way of building up power like a river dammed. Why did the Vietcong sniper bracket him that day (first bullet a few inches left of one ear, second bullet a few inches right of the other) but never fire the third bullet? Why did Earl's South Vietnamese combat buddy, Nguyen Phong — the one Earl nicknamed Tiger, and in whose memory he would nickname his son — stir one night just in time to awaken Earl and warn him not to budge because a viper was poised inches from his right eye? What about that road Earl's jeep rolled down one night, the same road on which two friends had just been mutilated, the road that took him through a village so silent and dark that his scalp tingled, and then, just beyond it ... hell turned inside-out over his shoulder, the sky lighting up and all the huts he had just passed spewing Vietcong machine-gun and artillery fire? He never understands what is the purpose of Lieutenant Colonel Woods's surviving again and again. He never quite comprehends what is the point of his life, until....
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POSITIONING THE PRODUCT
At Nike headquarters Tiger learns a few tricks of the TV trade.
photograph by Lynn Johnson
Until the boy is born. He will get all the time that Earl was unable to devote to the three children from his first marriage. He will be the only child from Earl's second marriage, to the Thai woman he brought back to America, and right away there are signs. What other six-month-old, Earl asks, has the balance to stand in the palm of his father's hand and remain there even as Daddy strolls around the house? Was there another 11-month-old, ever, who could pick up a sawed-off club, imitate his father's golf swing so fluidly and drive the ball so wickedly into the nylon net across the garage? Another four-year-old who could be dropped off at the golf course at 9 a.m. on a Saturday and picked up at 5 p.m., pockets bulging with money he had won from disbelievers 10 and 20 years older, until Pop said, "Tiger, you can't do that"? Earl starts to get a glimmer. He is to be the father of the world's most gifted golfer.
But why? What for? Not long after Tiger's birth, when Earl has left the military to become a purchaser for McDonnell Douglas, he finds himself in a long discussion with a woman he knows. She senses the power pooling inside him, the friction. "You have so much to give," she tells him, "but you're not giving it. You haven't even scratched the surface of your potential." She suggests he try est, Erhard Seminars Training, an intensive self-discovery and self-actualizing technique, and it hits Earl hard, direct mortar fire to the heart. What he learns is that his overmuscular sense of responsibility for others has choked his potential.
"To the point," says Earl, "that I wouldn't even buy a handkerchief for myself. It went all the way back to the day my father died, when I was 11, and my mother put her arm around me after the funeral and said, 'You're the man of the house now.' I became the father that young, looking out for everyone else, and then she died two years later.
"What I learned through est was that by doing more for myself, I could do much more for others. Yes, be responsible, but love life, and give people the space to be in your life, and allow yourself room to give to others. That caring and sharing is what's most important, not being responsible for everyone else. Which is where Tiger comes in. What I learned led me to give so much time to Tiger, and to give him the space to be himself, and not to smother him with dos and don'ts. I took out the authority aspect and turned it into companionship. I made myself vulnerable as a parent. When you have to earn respect from your child, rather than demanding it because it's owed to you as the father, miracles happen. I realized that, through him, the giving could take a quantum leap. What I could do on a limited scale, he could do on a global scale."
At last, the river is undammed, and Earl's whole life makes sense. At last, he sees what he was searching for, a pattern. No more volunteering for missions — he has his. Not simply to be a great golfer's father. To be destiny's father. His son will change the world.
"What the hell had I been doing in public information in the Army, posted in Brooklyn?" he asks. "Why, of course, what greater training can there be than three years of dealing with the New York media to prepare me to teach Tiger the importance of public relations and how to handle the media?"
Father: Where were you born, Tiger?
Son, age three: I was born on December 30, 1975, in Long Beach, California.
Father: No, Tiger, only answer the question you were asked. It's important to prepare yourself for this. Try again.
Son: I was born in Long Beach, California.
Father: Good, Tiger, good.
The late leap into the Green Berets? "What the hell was that for?" Earl says. "Of course, to prepare me to teach Tiger mental toughness."
The three children by the first marriage? "Not just one boy the first time," says Earl, "but two, along with a girl, as if God was saying, 'I want this son of a bitch to really have previous training.'"
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HERO WORSHIP
Actors in the "I am Tiger" ad know a star when they see one.
photograph by Lynn Johnson
The Buddhist wife, the one who grew up in a boarding school after her parents separated when she was five, the girl who then vowed that her child would know nothing but love and attention? The one who will preach inner calm to Tiger simply by turning to him with that face — still awaiting its first wrinkle at 52? Whose eyes close when she speaks, so he can almost see her gathering and sifting the thoughts? The mother who will walk every hole and keep score for Tiger at children's tournaments, adding a stroke or two if his calm cracks? "Look at this stuff!" cries Earl. "Over and over you can see the plan being orchestrated by someone other than me because I'm not this damn good! I tried to get out of that combat assignment to Thailand. But Tida was meant to bring in the influence of the Orient, to introduce Tiger to Buddhism and inner peace, so he would have the best of two different worlds. And so he would have the knowledge that there were two people whose lives were totally committed to him."
What of the heart attack Earl suffered when Tiger was 10 and the retired lieutenant colonel felt himself floating down the gray tunnel toward the light before he was wrenched back? "To prepare me to teach Tiger that life is short," Earl says, "and to live each day to the maximum, and not worry about the future. There's only now. You must understand that time is just a linear measurement of successive increments of now. Anyplace you go on that line is now, and that's how you have to live it."
No need to wonder about the appearance of the perfect childhood coach, John Anselmo; the perfect sports psychologist, Jay Brunza; the perfect agent, Hughes Norton; the perfect attorney, John Merchant; and the perfect pro swing instructor, Butch Harmon. Or about the great tangle of fate that leads them all to Tiger at just the right junctures in his development. "Everything," says Earl, "right there when he needs it. Everything. There can't be this much coincidence in the world. This is a directed scenario, and none of us involved in the scenario has failed to accept the responsibility. This is all destined to be."
His wife ratifies this, in her own way. She takes the boy's astrological chart to a Buddhist temple in Los Angeles and to another in Bangkok and is told by monks at both places that the child has wondrous powers. "If he becomes a politician, he will be either a president or a prime minister," she is told. "If he enters the military, he will be a general."
Tida comes to a conclusion. "Tiger has Thai, African, Chinese, American Indian and European blood," she says. "He can hold everyone together. He is the Universal Child."
This is in the air the boy breathes for 20 years, and it becomes bone fact for him, marrow knowledge. When asked about it, he merely nods in acknowledgment of it, assents to it; of course he believes it's true. So failure, in the rare visits it pays him, is not failure. It's just life pausing to teach him a lesson he needs in order to go where he's inevitably going. And success, no matter how much sooner than expected it comes to the door, always finds him dressed and ready to welcome it. "Did you ever see yourself doing this so soon?" a commentator breathlessly asks him seconds after his first pro victory, on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas, trying to elicit wonder and awe on live TV. "Yeah," Tiger responds. "I kind of did." And sleep comes to him so easily: In the midst of conversation, in a car, in a plane, off he goes, into the slumber of the destined. "I don't see any of this as scary or a burden," Tiger says. "I see it as fortunate. I've always known where I wanted to go in life. I've never let anything deter me. This is my purpose. It will unfold."
No sports star in the history of American celebrity has spoken this way. Maybe, somehow, Tiger can win.
"TIGER HAS THAI, AFRICAN, CHINESE, AMERICAN INDIAN AND EUROPEAN BLOOD," TIDA SAYS. "HE IS THE UNIVERSAL CHILD"
The machine will win. It must win because it too is destiny, five billion destinies leaning against one. There are ways to keep the hordes back, a media expert at Nike tells Tiger. Make broad gestures when you speak. Keep a club in your hands and take practice swings, or stand with one foot well out in front of the other, in almost a karate stance. That will give you room to breathe. Two weeks later, surrounded by a pen-wielding mob in La Quinta, Calif., in late November, just before the Skins Game, the instruction fails. Tiger survives, but his shirt and slacks are ruined, felt-tip-dotted to death.
The machine will win because it will wear the young man down, cloud his judgment, steal his sweetness, the way it does just before the Buick Challenge in Pine Mountain, Ga., at the end of September. It will make his eyes drop when the fans' gaze reaches for his, his voice growl at their clawing hands, his body sag onto a sofa after a practice round and then rise and walk across the room and suddenly stop in bewilderment. "I couldn't even remember what I'd just gotten off the couch for, two seconds before," he says. "I was like mashed potatoes. Total mush."
So he walks. Pulls out on the eve of the Buick Challenge, pulls out of the Fred Haskins Award dinner to honor him, and goes home. See, maybe Tiger can win. He can just turn his back on the machine and walk. Awards? Awards to Tiger are like echoes, voices bouncing off the walls, repeating what a truly confident man has already heard inside his own head. The Jack Nicklaus Award, the one Jack himself was supposed to present to Tiger live on ABC during the Memorial tournament last spring? Tiger would have blown it off if Wally Goodwin, his coach at Stanford during the two years he played there before turning pro, hadn't insisted that he show up.
The instant Tiger walks away from the Buick Challenge and the Haskins dinner, the hounds start yapping. See, that's why the machine will win. It's got all those damn heel-nippers. Little mutts on the PGA Tour resenting how swiftly the 20-year-old was ordained, how hastily he was invited to play practice rounds with Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, with Greg Norman and Ray Floyd and Nick Faldo and Fred Couples. And big dogs snapping too. Tom Kite quoted as saying, "I can't ever remember being tired when I was 20," and Peter Jacobsen quoted, "You can't compare Tiger to Nicklaus and Palmer anymore because they never [walked out]."
He rests for a week, stunned by the criticism — "I thought those people were my friends," he says. He never second-guesses his decision to turn pro, but he sees what he surrendered. "I miss college," he says. "I miss hanging out with my friends, getting in a little trouble. I have to be so guarded now. I miss sitting around drinking beer and talking half the night. There's no one my own age to hang out with anymore because almost everyone my age is in college. I'm a target for everybody now, and there's nothing I can do about it. My mother was right when she said that turning pro would take away my youth. But golfwise, there was nothing left for me in college."
He reemerges after the week's rest and rushes from four shots off the lead on the final day to win the Las Vegas Invitational in sudden death. The world's waiting for him again, this time with reinforcements. Letterman and Leno want him as a guest; GQ calls about a cover; Cosby, along with almost every other sitcom you can think of, offers to write an episode revolving around Tiger, if only he'll appear. Kids dress up as Tiger for Halloween — did anyone ever dress up as Arnie or Jack? — and Michael Jordan declares that his only hero on earth is Tiger Woods. Pepsi is dying to have him cut a commercial for one of its soft drinks aimed at Generation Xers; Nike and Titleist call in chits for the $40 million and $20 million contracts he signed; money managers are eager to know how he wants his millions invested; women walk onto the course during a practice round and ask for his hand in marriage; kids stampede over and under ropes and chase him from the 18th hole to the clubhouse; piles of phone messages await him when he returns to his hotel room. "Why," Tiger asks, "do so many people want a piece of me?"
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ADVISE AND CONSENT
Agent Norton has Tiger's ear as they judge product designs.
photograph by Lynn Johnson
Because something deeper than conventional stardom is at work here, something so spontaneous and subconscious that words have trouble going there. It's a communal craving, a public aching for a superstar free of anger and arrogance and obsession with self. It's a hollow place that chimes each time Tiger and his parents strike the theme of father and mother and child love, each time Tiger stands at a press conference and declares, "They have raised me well, and I truly believe they have taught me to accept full responsibility for all aspects of my life." During the making of a Titleist commercial in November, a makeup woman is so moved listening to Earl describe his bond with Tiger that she decides to contact her long-estranged father. "See what I mean?" cries Earl. "Did you affect someone that way today? Did anyone else there? It's destiny, man. It's something bigger than me."
What makes it so vivid is context. The white canvas that the colors are being painted on — the moneyed, mature and almost minority-less world of golf — makes Tiger an emblem of youth overcoming age, have-not overcoming have, outsider overcoming insider, to the delight not only of the 18-year-olds in the gallery wearing nose rings and cornrows, but also — of all people — of the aging insider haves.
So Tiger finds himself, just a few weeks after turning pro at the end of August, trying to clutch a bolt of lightning with one hand and steer an all-at-once corporation — himself — with the other, and before this he has never worked a day in his life. Never mowed a neighbor's lawn, never flung a folded newspaper, never stocked a grocery shelf; Mozarts just don't, you know. And he has to act as if none of this is new or vexing because he has this characteristic — perhaps from all those years of hanging out with his dad at tournaments, all those years of mixing with and mauling golfers five, 10, 20, 30 years older than he is — of never permitting himself to appear confused, surprised or just generally a little squirt. "His favorite expression," Earl says, "is, 'I knew that.'" Of course Pop, who is just as irreverent with Tiger as he is reverent, can say, "No, you didn't know that, you little s---." But Earl, who has always been the filter for Tiger, decides to take a few steps back during his son's first few months as a pro because he wishes to encourage Tiger's independence and because he is uncertain of his own role now that the International Management Group (IMG) is managing Tiger's career.
Nobody notices it, but the inner calm is beginning to dissolve. Earl enters Tiger's hotel room during the Texas Open in mid-October to ask him about his schedule, and Tiger does something he has never done in his 20 years. He bites the old man's head off.
Earl blinks. "I understand how you must feel," he says.
"No, you don't," snaps Tiger.
"And I realized," Earl says later, "that I'd spent 20 years planning for this, but the one thing I didn't do was educate Tiger to be the boss of a corporation. There was just no vehicle for that, and I thought it would develop more slowly. I wasn't presumptuous enough to anticipate this. For the first time in his life, the training was behind the reality. I could see on his face that he was going through hell."
The kid is fluid, though. Just watch him walk. He's quick to flow into the new form, to fit the contour of necessity. A few hours after the outburst he's apologizing to his father and hugging him. A few days later he's giving Pop the O.K. to call a meeting of the key members of Tiger's new corporation and establish a system, Lieutenant Colonel Woods in command, chairing a 2 1/2-hour teleconference with the team each week to sift through all the demands, weed out all the chaff and present Tiger five decisions to make instead of 500. A few days after that, the weight forklifted off his shoulders, at least temporarily, Tiger wins the Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic. And a few weeks later, at the Fred Haskins Award dinner, which has been rescheduled at his request, Tiger stands at the podium and says, "I should've attended the dinner [the first time]. I admit I was wrong, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience I may have caused. But I have learned from that, and I will never make that mistake again. I'm very honored to be part of this select group, and I'll always remember, for both good and bad, this Haskins Award; for what I did and what I learned, for the company I'm now in and I'll always be in. Thank you very much." The crowd surges to its feet, cheering once more.
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TALE OF THE TAPE
It's not just his feet but all of Tiger that Nike will clothe.
photograph by Lynn Johnson
See, maybe Tiger can win. He's got the touch. He's got the feel. He never writes down a word before he gives a speech. When he needs to remember a phone number, he doesn't search his memory or a little black book; he picks up a phone and watches what number his fingers go to. When he needs a 120-yard shot to go under an oak branch and over a pond, he doesn't visualize the shot, as most golfers would. He looks at the flag and pulls everything from the hole back, back, back ... not back into his mind's eye, but into his hands and forearms and hips, so they'll do it by feel. Explain how he made that preposterous shot? He can't. Better you interview his knuckles and metacarpals.
"His handicap," says Earl, "is that he has such a powerful creative mind. His imagination is too vivid. If he uses visualization, the ball goes nuts. So we piped into his creative side even deeper, into his incredible sense of feel."
"I've learned to trust the subconscious," says Tiger. "My instincts have never lied to me."
The mother radiates this: the Eastern proclivity to let life happen, rather than the Western one to make it happen. The father comes to it in his own way, through fire. To kill a man, to conduct oneself calmly and efficiently when one's own death is imminent — a skill Earl learns in Green Berets psychological training and then again and again in jungles and rice paddies — one removes the conscious mind from the task and yields to the subconscious. "It's the more powerful of the two minds," Earl says. "It works faster than the conscious mind, yet it's patterned enough to handle routine tasks over and over, like driving a car or making a putt. It knows what to do.
"Allow yourself the freedom of emotion and feeling. Don't try to control them and trap them. Acknowledge them and become the beneficiary of them. Let it all outflow."
Let it all because it's all there: The stability, almost freakish for a close-of-the-millennium California child — same two parents, same house all his 20 years, same best friends, one since second grade, one since eighth. The kid, for god's sake, never once had a babysitter. The conditioning is there as well, the two years of psychological boot camp during which Earl dropped golf bags and pumped cart brakes during Tiger's backswings, jingled change and rolled balls across his line of vision to test his nerves, promising him at the outset that he only had to say "Enough" and Earl would cut off the blowtorch, but promising too that if Tiger graduated, no man he ever faced would be mentally stronger than he. "I am the toughest golfer mentally," Tiger says.
The bedrock is so wide that opposites can dance upon it: The cautious man can be instinctive, the careful man can be carefree. The bedrock is so wide that it has enticed Tiger into the habit of falling behind — as he did in the final matches of all three U.S. Junior Amateur and all three U.S. Amateur victories — knowing in his tissue and bones that danger will unleash his greatest power. "Allow success and fame to happen," the old man says. "Let the legend grow."
To hell with the Tao. The machine will win, it has to win, because it makes everything happen before a man knows it. Before he knows it, a veil descends over his eyes when another stranger approaches. Before he knows it, he's living in a walled community with an electronic gate and a security guard, where the children trick-or-treat in golf carts, a place like the one Tiger just moved into in Orlando to preserve some scrap of sanity. Each day there, even with all the best intentions, how can he help but be a little more removed from the world he's supposed to change, and from his truest self?
Which is ... who? The poised, polite, opaque sage we see on TV? No, no, no; his friends hoot and haze him when they see that Tiger on the screen, and he can barely help grinning himself. The Tiger they know is perfectly 20, a fast-food freak who never remembers to ask if anyone else is hungry before he bolts to Taco Bell or McDonald's for the 10th time of the week. The one who loves riding roller coasters, spinning out golf carts and winning at cards no matter how often his father accuses him of "reckless eyeballing." The one who loves delivering the dirty joke, who owns a salty barracks tongue just a rank or two beneath his father's. The one who's flip, who's downright cocky. When a suit walks up to him before the Haskins Award dinner and says, "I think you're going to be the next great one, but those are mighty big shoes to fill," Tiger replies, "Got big feet."
"THE MACHINE WILL WIN, IT HAS TO WIN, BECAUSE IT MAKES EVERYTHING HAPPEN BEFORE A MAN KNOWS WHAT HIT HIM"
A typical exchange between Tiger and his agent, Norton:
"Tiger, they want to know when you can do that interview."
"Tell them to kiss my ass!"
"All right, and after that, what should I tell them?"
"Tell them to kiss my ass again!"
"O.K., and after that...."
But it's a cockiness cut with humility, the paradox pounded into his skull by a father who in one breath speaks of his son with religious awe and in the next grunts, "You weren't s--- then, Tiger. You ain't s--- now. You ain't never gonna be s---."
"That's why I know I can handle all this," Tiger says, "no matter how big it gets. I grew up in the media's eye, but I was taught never to lose sight of where I came from. Athletes aren't as gentlemanly as they used to be. I don't like that change. I like the idea of being a role model. It's an honor. People took the time to help me as a kid, and they impacted my life. I want to do the same for kids."
So, if it's a clinic for children instead of an interview or an endorsement for adults, the cynic in Tiger gives way to the child who grew up immersed in his father's vision of an earth-altering compassion, the seven-year-old boy who watched scenes from the Ethiopian famine on the evening news, went right to his bedroom and returned with a $20 bill to contribute from his piggy bank. Last spring busloads of inner-city kids would arrive at golf courses where Tiger was playing for Stanford, spilling out to watch the Earl and Tiger show in wonder. Earl would talk about the dangers of drugs, then proclaim, "Here's Tiger Woods on drugs," and Tiger would stagger to the tee, topping the ball so it bounced crazily to the side. And then, presto, with a wave of his arms Earl would remove the drugs from Tiger's body, and his son would stride to the ball and launch a 330-yard rocket across the sky. Then Earl would talk about respect and trust and hard work and demonstrate what they can all lead to by standing 10 feet in front of his son, raising his arms and telling Tiger to smash the ball between them — and, whoosh, Tiger would part not only the old man's arms but his haircut too.
They've got plans, the two of them, big plans, for a Tiger Woods Foundation that will fund scholarships across the country, set up clinics and coaches and access to golf courses for inner-city children. "I throw those visions out there in front of him," Earl says, "and it's like reeling in a fish. He goes for the bait, takes it and away he goes. This is nothing new. It's been working this way for a long time."
"That's the difference," says Merchant, Tiger's attorney and a family friend. "Other athletes who have risen to this level just didn't have this kind of guidance. With a father and mother like Tiger's, he has to be real. It's such a rare quality in celebrities nowadays. There hasn't been a politician since John Kennedy whom people have wanted to touch. But watch Tiger. He has it. He actually listens to people when they stop him in an airport. He looks them in the eye. I can't ever envision Tiger Woods selling his autograph."
See, maybe Tiger can win.
Let's be honest. The machine will win because you can't work both sides of this street. The machine will win because you can't transcend wearing 16 Nike swooshes, you can't move human hearts while you're busy pushing sneakers. Gandhi didn't hawk golf balls, did he? Jackie Robinson was spared that fate because he came and went while Madison Avenue was still teething. Ali became a symbol instead of a logo because of boxing's disrepute and because of the attrition of cells in the basal ganglia of his brain. Who or what will save Tiger Woods?
Did someone say Buddha?
ALT TEXT
FACE THE MUSIC
Handling the press is another skill Tiger's learning at Nike U.
photograph by Lynn Johnson
Every year near his birthday, Tiger goes with his mother to a Buddhist temple and makes a gift of rice, sugar and salt to the monks there who have renounced all material goods. A mother-of-pearl Buddha given to Tiger by his Thai grandfather watches over him while he sleeps, and a gold Buddha hangs from the chain on his neck. "I like Buddhism because it's a whole way of being and living," Tiger says. "It's based on discipline and respect and personal responsibility. I like Asian culture better than ours because of that. Asians are much more disciplined than we are. Look how well behaved their children are. It's how my mother raised me. You can question, but talk back? Never. In Thailand, once you've earned people's respect, you have it for life. Here it's, What have you done for me lately? So here you can never rest easy. In this country I have to be very careful. I'm easygoing, but I won't let you in completely. There, I'm Thai, and it feels very different. In many ways I consider that home.
"I believe in Buddhism. Not every aspect, but most of it. So I take bits and pieces. I don't believe that human beings can achieve ultimate enlightenment, because humans have flaws. I don't want to get rid of all my wants and desires. I can enjoy material things, but that doesn't mean I need them. It doesn't matter to me whether I live in a place like this" — the golf club in his hand makes a sweep of the Orlando villa — "or in a shack. I'd be fine in a shack, as long as I could play some golf. I'll do the commercials for Nike and for Titleist, but there won't be much more than that. I have no desire to be the king of endorsement money."
On the morning after he decides to turn pro, there's a knock on his hotel room door. It's Norton, bleary-eyed but exhilarated after a late-night round of negotiations with Nike. He explains to Tiger and Earl that the benchmark for contract endorsements in golf is Norman's reported $2 1/2 million-a-year deal with Reebok. Then, gulping down hard on the yabba-dabba-doo rising up his throat, Norton announces Nike's offer: $40 million for five years, eight mil a year. "Over three times what Norman gets!" Norton exults.
Silence.
"Guys, do you realize this is more than Nike pays any athlete in salary, even Jordan?"
Silence.
"Finally," Norton says now, recalling that morning, "Tiger says, 'Mmmm-hmmm,' and I say, 'That's it? Mmmm-hmmm?' No 'Omigod.' No slapping five or 'Ya-hooo!' So I say, 'Let me go through this again, guys.' Finally Tiger says, 'Guess that's pretty amazing.' That's it. When I made the deal with Titleist a day later, I went back to them saying, 'I'm almost embarrassed to tell you this one. Titleist is offering a little more than $20 million over five years.'"
On the Monday morning after his first pro tournament, a week after the two megadeals, Tiger scans the tiny print on the sports page under Milwaukee Open money earnings and finds his name. Tiger Woods: $2,544. "That's my money," he exclaims. "I earned this!"
See, maybe Tiger can win.
How? How can he win when there are so many insects under so many rocks? Several more death threats arrive just before the Skins Game, prompting an increase in his plainclothes security force, which is already larger than anyone knows. His agent's first instinct is to trash every piece of hate mail delivered to IMG, but Tiger won't permit it. Every piece of racist filth must be saved and given to him. At Stanford he kept one letter taped to his wall. Fuel comes in the oddest forms.
The audience, in its hunger for goodness, swallows hard over the Nike ad that heralds Tiger's entrance into the professional ranks. The words that flash on the screen over images of Tiger — There are still courses in the United States I am not allowed to play because of the color of my skin. I've heard I'm not ready for you. Are you ready for me? — ooze the very attitude from which many in the audience are seeking relief. The media backlash is swift: The Tiger Woods who used to tell the press, "The only time I think about race is when the media ask me" — whoa, what happened to him?
ALT TEXT
WHAT, ME WORRY?
Tiger is laid-back but in control at Nike apparel meetings.
photograph by Lynn Johnson
What happened to him was a steady accretion of experiences, also known as a life. What happened, just weeks before he was born, was a fusillade of limes and BBs rattling the Woods house in Cypress, Calif., one of the limes shattering the kitchen window, splashing glass all around the pregnant Tida, to welcome the middle-class subdivision's first non-Caucasian family.
What happened was a gang of older kids seizing Tiger on his first day of kindergarten, tying him to a tree, hurling rocks at him, calling him monkey and nigger. And Tiger, at age five, telling no one what happened for several days, trying to absorb what this meant about himself and his world.
What happened was the Look, as Tiger and Earl came to call it, the uneasy, silent stare they received in countless country-club locker rooms and restaurants. "Something a white person could never understand," says Tiger, "unless he went to Africa and suddenly found himself in the middle of a tribe." What happened was Tiger's feeling pressured to leave a driving range just two years ago, not far from his family's California home, because a resident watching Tiger's drives rocket into the nearby protective netting reported that a black teenager was trying to bombard his house.
What happened was the cold shoulder Earl got when he took his tyke to play at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress — "a club," Earl says, "composed mostly of retired naval personnel who knew blacks only as cooks and servers, and along comes me, a retired lieutenant colonel outranking 99 percent of them, and I have the nerve to take up golf at 42 and immediately become a low handicap and beat them, and then I have the audacity to have this kid. Well, they had to do something. They took away Tiger's playing privileges twice, said he was too young, even though there were other kids too young who they let play. The second time it happened, I went up to the pro who had done it and made a bet. I said, 'If you'll spot my three-year-old just one stroke a hole, nine holes, playing off the same tees, and he beats you, will you certify him?' The pro started laughing and said, 'Sure.' Tiger beat him by two strokes, got certified, then the members went over the pro's head and kicked him out again. That's when we switched him to another course."
SEE, MAYBE TIGER CAN WIN. HE'S GOT THE TOUCH. HE'S GOT THE FEEL. "MY INSTINCTS," HE SAYS, "HAVE NEVER LIED TO ME"
Beat them. That was his parents' solution for each banishment, each Look. Hold your tongue, hew to every rule and beat them. Tiger Woods is the son of the first black baseball player in the Big Seven, a catcher back in the early '50s, before the conference became the Big Eight. A man who had to leave his Kansas State teammates on road trips and travel miles to stay in motels for blacks; who had to go to the back door of restaurant kitchens to be fed while his teammates dined inside; who says, "This is the most racist society in the world — I know that." A man who learned neither to extinguish his anger nor spray it but to quietly convert it into animus, the determination to enter the system and overcome it by turning its own tools against it. A Green Berets explosives expert whose mind naturally ran that way, whose response, upon hearing Tiger rave about the security in his new walled community, was, "I could get in. I could blow up the clubhouse and be gone before they ever knew what hit them." A father who saw his son, from the beginning, as the one who would enter one of America's last Caucasian bastions, the PGA Tour, and overthrow it from within in a manner that would make it smile and ask for more. "Been planning that one for 20 years," says Earl. "See, you don't turn it into hatred. You turn it into something positive. So many athletes who reach the top now had things happen to them as children that created hostility, and they bring that hostility with them. But that hostility uses up energy. If you can do it without the chip on the shoulder, it frees up all that energy to create."
It's not until Stanford, where Tiger takes an African-American history course and stays up half the night in dormitories talking with people of every shade of skin, that his experiences begin to crystallize. "What I realized is that even though I'm mathematically Asian — if anything — if you have one drop of black blood in the United States, you're black," says Tiger. "And how important it is for this country to talk about this subject. It's not me to blow my horn, the way I come across in that Nike ad, or to say things quite that way. But I felt it was worth it because the message needed to be said. You can't say something like that in a polite way. Golf has shied away from this for too long. Some clubs have brought in tokens, but nothing has really changed. I hope what I'm doing can change that."
ALT TEXT
photograph by Michael O'Neill
But don't overestimate race's proportion in the fuel that propels Tiger Woods. Don't look for traces of race in the astonishing rubble at his feet on the Sunday after he lost the Texas Open by two strokes and returned to his hotel room and snapped a putter in two with one violent lift of his knee. Then another putter. And another. And another and another — eight in all before his rage was spent and he was ready to begin considering the loss's philosophical lesson. "That volcano of competitive fire, that comes from me," says Earl. A volcano that's mostly an elite athlete's need to win, a need far more immediate than that of changing the world.
No, don't overestimate race, but don't overlook it, either. When Tiger is asked about racism, about the effect it has on him when he senses it in the air, he has a golf club in his hands. He takes the club by the neck, his eyes flashing hot and cold at once, and gives it a short upward thrust. He says, "It makes me want to stick it right up their asses." Pause. "On the golf course."
The machine will win because there is so much of the old man's breath in the boy ... and how long can the old man keep breathing? At 2 a.m., hours before the second round of the Tour Championship in Tulsa on Oct. 25, the phone rings in Tiger's hotel room. It's Mom. Pop's in an ambulance, on his way to a Tulsa hospital. He's just had his second heart attack.
The Tour Championship? The future of humanity? The hell with 'em. Tiger's at the old man's bedside in no time, awake most of the night. Tiger's out of contention in the Tour Championship by dinnertime, with a second-round 78, his worst till then as a pro. "There are things more important than golf," he says.
The old man survives — and sees the pattern at work, of course. He's got to throw away the cigarettes. He's got to quit ordering the cholesterol special for breakfast. "I've got to shape up now, God's telling me," Earl says, "or I won't be around for the last push, the last lesson." The one about how to ride the tsunami of runaway fame.
The machine will win because no matter how complicated it all seems now, it is simpler than it will ever be. The boy will marry one day, and the happiness of two people will lie in his hands. Children will follow, and it will become his job to protect three or four or five people from the molars of the machine. Imagine the din of the grinding in five, 10, 15 years, when the boy reaches his golfing prime.
The machine will win because the whole notion is so ludicrous to begin with, a kid clutching an eight-iron changing the course of humanity. No, of course not, there won't be thousands of people sitting in front of tanks because of Tiger Woods. He won't bring about the overthrow of a tyranny or spawn a religion that one day will number 300 million devotees.
But maybe Pop is onto something without quite seeing what it is. Maybe it has to do with timing: the appearance of his son when America is turning the corner to a century in which the country's faces of color will nearly equal those that are white. Maybe, every now and then, a man gets swallowed by the machine, but the machine is changed more than he is.
For when we swallow Tiger Woods, the yellow-black-red-white man, we swallow something much more significant than Jordan or Charles Barkley. We swallow hope in the American experiment, in the pell-mell jumbling of genes. We swallow the belief that the face of the future is not necessarily a bitter or bewildered face; that it might even, one day, be something like Tiger Woods's face: handsome and smiling and ready to kick all comers' asses.
We see a woman, 50-ish and Caucasian, well-coiffed and tailored — the woman we see at every country club — walk up to Tiger Woods before he receives the Haskins Award and say, "When I watch you taking on all those other players, Tiger, I feel like I'm watching my own son" ... and we feel the quivering of the cosmic compass that occurs when human beings look into the eyes of someone of another color and see their own flesh and blood.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Father of the Tiger
[121 People]
By Earl Woods:
I concur with Thurgood Marshall -- there is nothing wrong with speaking the language of your culture when you're within that culture. But to be upwardly mobile in society, one must learn to speak the best English that one can.
The worst part of getting older is realizing what you could have accomplished if you'd known then what you know now. Every old person, no matter how content they seem, feels that sense of regret. It's a bitch, but it's part of life. So be nice to me.
When we Green Berets were in Alaska on maneuvers for a long time, nothing tasted better than hobo coffee. We'd fill a can with water, boil it, pour in some coffee and let it brew. When it was done, we'd throw a little snow in the can, which made the grounds instantly settle to the bottom. At that point we'd dip our cups. Then we'd pour in more water and brew the same grounds. We'd do this over and over. None of the grounds got in the cup, and we'd get 10 batches of coffee from a handful of grounds.
Lying about your score or cheating at golf is really stealing. They constitute the worst kind of stealing, which is stealing from yourself. There is no end to the misery this brings on a person. I taught this to Tiger at a very young age, and to this day he's incapable of lying. He may not give you a full answer, but he never lies. The one time Tiger lied as a boy, he got physically ill.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
The Ultimate's
[121 Words]
(1) ultimate < (2) penultimate < (3) antepenultimate < (4) preantepenultimate
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
L.A. Hospitals
* Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
8700 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
# 14 Heart and heart surgery U.S. News Score: 32.5 Reputation: 4.5%
# 16 Digestive disorders U.S. News Score: 29.3 Reputation: 6.4%
# 23 Hormonal disorders U.S. News Score: 29.8 Reputation: 2.8%
# 27 Neurology and neurosurgery U.S. News Score: 31.5 Reputation: 0.4%
# 28 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 33.5 Reputation: 3.2%
# 37 Orthopedics U.S. News Score: 29.0 Reputation: 0.9%
# 44 Kidney disease U.S. News Score: 34.6 Reputation: 2.5%
* Children's Hospital Los Angeles
4650 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027
# 16 Pediatrics Reputation: 7.7%
* City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, Calif.
1500 East Duarte Road
Duarte, CA 91010
# 43 Cancer U.S. News Score: 32.7 Reputation: 4.0%
* Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, Calif.
7601 East Imperial Highway
Downey, CA 90242
# 13 Rehabilitation Reputation: 7.9%
* UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
10833 Le Conte Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095
# 1 Geriatrics U.S. News Score: 100.0 Reputation: 45.4%
# 4 Urology U.S. News Score: 52.4 Reputation: 26.2%
# 5 Digestive disorders U.S. News Score: 46.7 Reputation: 21.9%
# 5 Ophthalmology Reputation: 34.7%
# 6 Orthopedics U.S. News Score: 42.3 Reputation: 13.6%
# 7 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 49.0 Reputation: 12.4%
# 7 Rheumatology Reputation: 24.2%
# 8 Cancer U.S. News Score: 40.6 Reputation: 6.7%
# 8 Kidney disease U.S. News Score: 65.6 Reputation: 14.6%
# 9 Ear, nose, and throat U.S. News Score: 50.2 Reputation: 13.8%
# 9 Neurology and neurosurgery U.S. News Score: 46.8 Reputation: 14.9%
# 11 Hormonal disorders U.S. News Score: 38.1 Reputation: 11.0%
# 12 Pediatrics Reputation: 8.5%
# 13 Heart and heart surgery U.S. News Score: 32.8 Reputation: 6.7%
# 15 Respiratory disorders U.S. News Score: 34.6 Reputation: 8.2%
* UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Los Angeles
760 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095
# 5 Psychiatry Reputation: 22.6%
* University of California, Irvine Medical Center, Orange
101 The City Drive
Orange, CA 92868
# 41 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 30.8 Reputation: 2.7%
* Doheny Eye Institute, USC University Hospital, Los Angeles
1500 San Pablo Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033
# 7 Ophthalmology Reputation: 17.6%
# 25 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 34.2 Reputation: 5.5%
# 29 Neurology and neurosurgery U.S. News Score: 31.5 Reputation: 2.3%
# 29 Orthopedics U.S. News Score: 30.1 Reputation: 2.7%
# 34 Ear, nose, and throat U.S. News Score: 33.9 Reputation: 3.3%
# 49 Hormonal disorders U.S. News Score: 26.3 Reputation: 2.4%
8700 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
# 14 Heart and heart surgery U.S. News Score: 32.5 Reputation: 4.5%
# 16 Digestive disorders U.S. News Score: 29.3 Reputation: 6.4%
# 23 Hormonal disorders U.S. News Score: 29.8 Reputation: 2.8%
# 27 Neurology and neurosurgery U.S. News Score: 31.5 Reputation: 0.4%
# 28 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 33.5 Reputation: 3.2%
# 37 Orthopedics U.S. News Score: 29.0 Reputation: 0.9%
# 44 Kidney disease U.S. News Score: 34.6 Reputation: 2.5%
* Children's Hospital Los Angeles
4650 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027
# 16 Pediatrics Reputation: 7.7%
* City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, Calif.
1500 East Duarte Road
Duarte, CA 91010
# 43 Cancer U.S. News Score: 32.7 Reputation: 4.0%
* Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, Calif.
7601 East Imperial Highway
Downey, CA 90242
# 13 Rehabilitation Reputation: 7.9%
* UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
10833 Le Conte Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095
# 1 Geriatrics U.S. News Score: 100.0 Reputation: 45.4%
# 4 Urology U.S. News Score: 52.4 Reputation: 26.2%
# 5 Digestive disorders U.S. News Score: 46.7 Reputation: 21.9%
# 5 Ophthalmology Reputation: 34.7%
# 6 Orthopedics U.S. News Score: 42.3 Reputation: 13.6%
# 7 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 49.0 Reputation: 12.4%
# 7 Rheumatology Reputation: 24.2%
# 8 Cancer U.S. News Score: 40.6 Reputation: 6.7%
# 8 Kidney disease U.S. News Score: 65.6 Reputation: 14.6%
# 9 Ear, nose, and throat U.S. News Score: 50.2 Reputation: 13.8%
# 9 Neurology and neurosurgery U.S. News Score: 46.8 Reputation: 14.9%
# 11 Hormonal disorders U.S. News Score: 38.1 Reputation: 11.0%
# 12 Pediatrics Reputation: 8.5%
# 13 Heart and heart surgery U.S. News Score: 32.8 Reputation: 6.7%
# 15 Respiratory disorders U.S. News Score: 34.6 Reputation: 8.2%
* UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Los Angeles
760 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095
# 5 Psychiatry Reputation: 22.6%
* University of California, Irvine Medical Center, Orange
101 The City Drive
Orange, CA 92868
# 41 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 30.8 Reputation: 2.7%
* Doheny Eye Institute, USC University Hospital, Los Angeles
1500 San Pablo Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033
# 7 Ophthalmology Reputation: 17.6%
# 25 Gynecology U.S. News Score: 34.2 Reputation: 5.5%
# 29 Neurology and neurosurgery U.S. News Score: 31.5 Reputation: 2.3%
# 29 Orthopedics U.S. News Score: 30.1 Reputation: 2.7%
# 34 Ear, nose, and throat U.S. News Score: 33.9 Reputation: 3.3%
# 49 Hormonal disorders U.S. News Score: 26.3 Reputation: 2.4%
Next April You'll Have Liver Cancer--the Pig Brain Type
明年四月你会得肝癌症，猪脑类型的。
Last night I had a terrible dream, which woke me up. I dreamed that I went to the hospital to check my brain (for what reason I don't remember now). The doctor has such a bad memory that he always forgets things (e.g. mixing up people's names), but the nurse was a capable lady--and outspoken, too. By the time my results were ready the doctor couldn't remember or find it (of course!), so I asked a technician, who did the test and knew the result. He told me I have to take medication (not a good sign). LS and I were on the way to see my father, who is also admitted to the hospital, when we walked pass the nurse, who told me the devastating news: I will have cancer next April. "Pig brain type," she added.
I remember being shocked and standing there with LS, who is also shocked. "What?!" She said. The nurse just stood there, apperently remembering that she probably shouldn't break the news to us in such a casual way. She wanted to say something, but she didn't.
Two things went through my mind immediately: 1) they must have discovered my liver cancer by the way of examining my brain, 2) the cancer must have spread to my brain already. For a moment, my head feels like it was hit by a brick. My heart probably skipped a beat, and if there were something I was holding (e.g. a coffee cup), I would have definately dropped it on the floor.
The next thing I remember is I gain some conciousness, realizing that it was a dream, but I was not yet completely awake. Then I thought I need to create a blog to write things down for my son, who is much too young now to understand anything, so he can read it when he grows up. Thanks to Steve Jobs who gave me this idea in his speech when he was talking about death.
Then my wife woke up. It was around 2:30 a.m. We laid there and had a long talk about my dream and other things that have been troubling us lately. One thing we agreed was to get my annual physical, ASAP.
I think God is using this to shake me up a little. I've been free-falling and keep setting record lows. Although, I know God's love is deep enough that no one can fall through it. Faith is about the only thing I have these days in my struggling spiritual life. I pray that God will catch me on the fall and lift me up again. He must. I only don't know if this was it.
When I got up this morning, I felt much better. Things were so gloomy these days I remember asking God to make this the last day of my life. (Take heart, I never want to kill myself. I only asked God to take me home.) Yesterday I asked God to make this day the first day of a brand new life for me. I finally understand what the old pastor meant by 'start all over again.' In God we can. I only don't know if this was it.
Time will tell!
I need to get an appointment for the physical now. Who knows what it would reveal; and who knows what will happen next April.
Pig brain type?!
Last night I had a terrible dream, which woke me up. I dreamed that I went to the hospital to check my brain (for what reason I don't remember now). The doctor has such a bad memory that he always forgets things (e.g. mixing up people's names), but the nurse was a capable lady--and outspoken, too. By the time my results were ready the doctor couldn't remember or find it (of course!), so I asked a technician, who did the test and knew the result. He told me I have to take medication (not a good sign). LS and I were on the way to see my father, who is also admitted to the hospital, when we walked pass the nurse, who told me the devastating news: I will have cancer next April. "Pig brain type," she added.
I remember being shocked and standing there with LS, who is also shocked. "What?!" She said. The nurse just stood there, apperently remembering that she probably shouldn't break the news to us in such a casual way. She wanted to say something, but she didn't.
Two things went through my mind immediately: 1) they must have discovered my liver cancer by the way of examining my brain, 2) the cancer must have spread to my brain already. For a moment, my head feels like it was hit by a brick. My heart probably skipped a beat, and if there were something I was holding (e.g. a coffee cup), I would have definately dropped it on the floor.
The next thing I remember is I gain some conciousness, realizing that it was a dream, but I was not yet completely awake. Then I thought I need to create a blog to write things down for my son, who is much too young now to understand anything, so he can read it when he grows up. Thanks to Steve Jobs who gave me this idea in his speech when he was talking about death.
Then my wife woke up. It was around 2:30 a.m. We laid there and had a long talk about my dream and other things that have been troubling us lately. One thing we agreed was to get my annual physical, ASAP.
I think God is using this to shake me up a little. I've been free-falling and keep setting record lows. Although, I know God's love is deep enough that no one can fall through it. Faith is about the only thing I have these days in my struggling spiritual life. I pray that God will catch me on the fall and lift me up again. He must. I only don't know if this was it.
When I got up this morning, I felt much better. Things were so gloomy these days I remember asking God to make this the last day of my life. (Take heart, I never want to kill myself. I only asked God to take me home.) Yesterday I asked God to make this day the first day of a brand new life for me. I finally understand what the old pastor meant by 'start all over again.' In God we can. I only don't know if this was it.
Time will tell!
I need to get an appointment for the physical now. Who knows what it would reveal; and who knows what will happen next April.
Pig brain type?!
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Modeling
[121 Thoughts]
I'm not talking about the fashion industry, but the building of a scientific (usually mathmatical) prototype to explain a given phanominum. It seems that my mind is built or trained to always try to find out the governing law behind a natural or socioeconomic hehavior. In gradschool I was in a lab that strives to discover the constitutional relation of materials. We put the material under all kinds of conditions and try to summarize its behavior in mathmatical equation(s). Likewise, using selected known behaviors (say in a stock market) I try to imagine a picture to explain those behaviors, and check if all known behaviors fit the picture. Ultimately this model will then predict unknown behaviors. Modeling is one of the most natrual habits of my mind. The hardest ones would be modeling of abstract things, such as musical cords, when I don't see a way to picture it. But of course it's also a bad example to use the stock market, which has been scrutinized ever since its inception and still no one has a good model, and probably never will. Modeling is fun, and I have to say there must be many many like minds out there.
Stock orders
1. Limit Order
Order to buy or sell a stated amount of stock at a specified price or better. [It guarantees the actual strike price to be better than specified (lower for selling and higher for buying).]
2. Stop Order
A stop order is an order to buy or sell a stock once the price of the stock reaches a specified price, known as the stop price. When the specified price is reached, your stop order becomes a market order, [which means the acutal price is not guaranteed to be better. The stop price is just a trigger point to activate the order.]
3. Stop Limit Order
An order to buy or sell at a specified price or better (called the stop-limit price) but only after a given stop price has been reached or passed. For example, an order to buy 100 MSFT 55 Stop 56 Limit, means that if the market price reaches 55 (stop price) or better (in the case of a buy, it would be less than 55) the order is then triggered to execute the order as a limit order at 56 or a better (lower) price. [the order is activated after the price hits 55, and will conduct the trade for anything better than 56, which could be 55.5 for buying, for example] Stop-limit orders avoid some of the risk a stop order has, but like all limit orders, carries the risk of missing the market all together, since the specified limit price or better may never occur.
Order to buy or sell a stated amount of stock at a specified price or better. [It guarantees the actual strike price to be better than specified (lower for selling and higher for buying).]
2. Stop Order
A stop order is an order to buy or sell a stock once the price of the stock reaches a specified price, known as the stop price. When the specified price is reached, your stop order becomes a market order, [which means the acutal price is not guaranteed to be better. The stop price is just a trigger point to activate the order.]
3. Stop Limit Order
An order to buy or sell at a specified price or better (called the stop-limit price) but only after a given stop price has been reached or passed. For example, an order to buy 100 MSFT 55 Stop 56 Limit, means that if the market price reaches 55 (stop price) or better (in the case of a buy, it would be less than 55) the order is then triggered to execute the order as a limit order at 56 or a better (lower) price. [the order is activated after the price hits 55, and will conduct the trade for anything better than 56, which could be 55.5 for buying, for example] Stop-limit orders avoid some of the risk a stop order has, but like all limit orders, carries the risk of missing the market all together, since the specified limit price or better may never occur.
Help me understand this...
As I often do when I think something is overvalued, but I don't really want to sell, I looked at the possibility of selling call options on my position. The December $300 call options were fetching $36 a share, meaning I could realize a further 15% gain if I sell the calls now and Google shares are above $300 in December. Then again, I could just sell some shares, even recouping all of my initial investment. One savvy friend of mine recommended selling a third of my position outright, selling covered calls on a third, and holding a third, which strikes me as a prudent course.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
On Converting Old Analog Tapes to Digital
From Google Group:
Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
All 8 messages in topic - view as tree
jfaugh...@spamcop.net
Mar 18, 11:32 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
Followup-To: rec.video
From: jfaugh...@spamcop.net - Find messages by this author
Date: 18 Mar 2005 11:32:17 -0800
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 11:32 am
Subject: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
I've a question on video signal degradation when transferring analog
video output via a mini-jack A/V cable vs. an S-video cable.I'm rather
hoping Steve McDonald will see this and post a response, based on the
quote from a Jan 2005 message of his he knows this domain rather well!
Here's the specific question:
How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RGB RCA (3
component) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality S-video cable
with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
Here's the background if needed:
I have a @ 7 yo SONY analog Hi-8 camcorder with S-video I/O. I just
bought a Canon Elura 90. I have 30 days to return the Elura if I want
something else.
Here's the problem. The 2005 Elura 90s don't have S-video input/output.
They use an all-in-one mini-jack connector for analog I/O -- similar to
what digital cameras use.
One of the main things I want the Elura to do is reasonably high
quality conversion of my legacy Hi-8 tapes to digital format. I'll then
edit the digital tapes over time on my purchase-pending G5 iMac and
burn DVDs to archive.
--
john
john faughnan
jfaugh...@spamcop.net
meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, digital video, Canon, SONY, passthrough,
pass-through, A/D conversion, video editing, Hi 8, Hi8
-------------------
Steve McDonald wrote:
(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.video/msg/3d4be74dd7d39d44)
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> ... Although S-Video equipped VCRs have a lower band of recording
> frequency for the chroma sub-carrier and a higher band for the
luminance
> portion, the signal comes off the medium in composite form and then
is
> separated into two circuits to be output on an S-Video connector.
> Composite-only equipped VHS, 8mm and consumer Beta VCRs work the same
> way, but don't separate the two portions before they are output.
They
> also use the same "color-under" chroma sub-carrier and higher
luminance
> recording frequency system. You will note that a standard VHS
recording
> can be played on an S-VHS VCR and output as an S-Video signal, as
well
> as in composite form and an S-VHS recording playback can be output as
> either an S-Video or composite signal.
> S-VHS, Hi-8 and ED-Beta VCRs don't record a signal as "S-Video"
on
> tape. S-Video exists only as a transfer protocol on connecting
> circuits, except in a TV set with an S-Video input. There the signal
> remains as separate chroma and luma, for processing and onscreen
> display. If a TV receives a composite signal, it is separated into
> chroma and luma, as part of its pre-display process. The only
advantage
> of S-Video, is to keep the chroma and luma separate during the
transfer
> and this reduces the "crosstalk" or interference between the two
> frequency segments. This allows for more pure and richer color
> transfer, but it's only a relative benefit, not an absolute one.
> It appears that in most or perhaps all cases, component signal
> converters send a better video image than either S-Video or composite
> protocols will do..
> There are professional analog component recording formats, such
as
> BetaCam and M2, that have two separate recording tracks, one for
chroma
> and one for luma. With most digital video formats, it's all encoded
> into a single recording track.
> Equipment that has component outputs separates the output signal
> into three chroma circuits for RGB; the luma signal is derived and
> reconstituted from them in the unit to which they are sent.
> Steve McDonald
jfaughnan
Mar 18, 11:53 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "jfaughnan" - Find messages by this author
Date: 18 Mar 2005 11:53:11 -0800
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 11:53 am
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
CORRECTION:
I wrote:
How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RGB RCA (3
component) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality S-video cable
with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
The RCA output is NOT RGB. It's video and two audio. May apologies.
So this should read:
How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RCA (1 video
composite, 2 audio) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality
S-video cable
with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
C.J.Patten
Mar 18, 12:19 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "C.J.Patten" - Find messages by this author
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:19:32 -0500
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 12:19 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
There are a lot of factors involved but, all things being equal, go with the
s-video connector.
The most graphic demonstration I've had of the difference was a Sony
Playstation hooked to a 32" Sony XBR TV, first with RCA jacks then with the
S-video.
Absolute night and day difference. The RCA seemed messy in comparison with
the s-video, almost smudged.
Try both hooked up to a TV and switch between them. I'd be surprised if you
ever used the RCA jack again when you can avoid it.
C.
"jfaughnan" wrote in message
news:1111175591.570754.200300@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> CORRECTION:
> I wrote:
> How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
> transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RGB RCA (3
> component) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality S-video cable
> with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
> The RCA output is NOT RGB. It's video and two audio. May apologies.
> So this should read:
> How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
> transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RCA (1 video
> composite, 2 audio) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality
> S-video cable
> with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
jfaughnan
Mar 18, 1:35 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "jfaughnan" - Find messages by this author
Date: 18 Mar 2005 13:35:57 -0800
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 1:35 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
You've convinced me! I'll return the Elura 90 and get a camera with S
video input.
Another correspondent kindly sent a list of resolutions related to
video media. This isn't directly related to the issue of using the
S-video vs. mini-jack/composite video connectors, but it does show that
when one has recorded in Hi8 there's a lot to lose with an inferior
output solution. If VHS is comparable to 8mm, the jump from VHS to Hi8
is comparable in magnitude to the jump from Digital camcorder to HDTV.
The following list provides maximum playback resolution for different
camcorder video sources:
8MM - Up To 240 Lines of Resolution
8MM XR - Up To 280 Lines of Resolution
Hi-8 - Up To 400 Lines of Resolution
Hi-8 XR - Up To 440 Lines of Resolution
D8 (Digital 8) - Up To 500 Lines of Resolution
Mini DV - Up To 530 Lines of Resolution
High Definition - Up To 1080 Interlaced Lines of Resolution
Steve McDonald
Mar 19, 3:42 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: bigrocketm...@webtv.net (Steve McDonald) - Find messages by this author
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 03:42:25 -0800
Local: Sat, Mar 19 2005 3:42 am
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How ...
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
I sent a personal reply on this to jfaughnan. He can share it if
he likes. In brief, I vote for S-Video for this transfer purpose.
Steve McDonald
jfaughnan
Mar 19, 6:34 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "jfaughnan" - Find messages by this author
Date: 19 Mar 2005 06:34:03 -0800
Local: Sat, Mar 19 2005 6:34 am
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How ...
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Steve's email message may have been zapped by my spamcop filters. I've
sent him a different email address to use and if he's able to resend
I'll post here.
I'm also summarizing this discussion on my blog, so it will have an
update too:
http://googlefaughnan.blogspot.com/2005/03/recvideo-google-groupsusen...
John Faughnan
Mar 19, 3:22 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "John Faughnan" - Find messages by this author
Date: 19 Mar 2005 15:22:17 -0800
Local: Sat, Mar 19 2005 3:22 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How ...
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Below are excerpts from Steve's. Other than the value of S-video, he
urges the use of very short connectors. He has one composite plug cable
that's only 4 inches long!
.... If you want to do a lot of conversions with your new
camcorder, there would be a noticeable weakening of the colors with an
RCA composite connector....
...Myself, I wouldn't settle for anything other than S-Video for
transfering my Hi-8 recordings and I've been doing plenty of that. I'm
very pleased how well my old analog metal tapes have held up and how
good the images look when put on digital tape.
If you do use composite to transfer the Hi-8 footage, a
high-quality video cord, that is as short as possible, would be best.
I
wouldn't use an audio cord, even though it would match the connectors
and work, as they usually don't have wires that are as thick or
well-shielded as those intended for video...
... One of my Sony 4-pin composite video/audio plugs has just 4-inch
wires
that end in female inline jacks, for connecting with separate composite
and audio cords.
andreifilip...@gmail.com
Apr 4, 4:04 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: andreifilip...@gmail.com - Find messages by this author
Date: 4 Apr 2005 17:04:21 -0700
Local: Mon, Apr 4 2005 4:04 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
The easiest way to compare: send both signals to the monitor.
Technically S-Video connection was invented as something in between
composite (one cable) and component (3 cables) types of connection. You
actually have 2 cables in one S-Video cord. One is used for the
Luminance (brighter-darker) signal, second is for color information.
Presumably the signal loss is less with S-Video compare to RCA, since
you don't have to mix two signals on one end and separate them on the
other.
FAQ Video, http://faqvideo.com
Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
All 8 messages in topic - view as tree
jfaugh...@spamcop.net
Mar 18, 11:32 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
Followup-To: rec.video
From: jfaugh...@spamcop.net - Find messages by this author
Date: 18 Mar 2005 11:32:17 -0800
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 11:32 am
Subject: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
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I've a question on video signal degradation when transferring analog
video output via a mini-jack A/V cable vs. an S-video cable.I'm rather
hoping Steve McDonald will see this and post a response, based on the
quote from a Jan 2005 message of his he knows this domain rather well!
Here's the specific question:
How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RGB RCA (3
component) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality S-video cable
with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
Here's the background if needed:
I have a @ 7 yo SONY analog Hi-8 camcorder with S-video I/O. I just
bought a Canon Elura 90. I have 30 days to return the Elura if I want
something else.
Here's the problem. The 2005 Elura 90s don't have S-video input/output.
They use an all-in-one mini-jack connector for analog I/O -- similar to
what digital cameras use.
One of the main things I want the Elura to do is reasonably high
quality conversion of my legacy Hi-8 tapes to digital format. I'll then
edit the digital tapes over time on my purchase-pending G5 iMac and
burn DVDs to archive.
--
john
john faughnan
jfaugh...@spamcop.net
meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, digital video, Canon, SONY, passthrough,
pass-through, A/D conversion, video editing, Hi 8, Hi8
-------------------
Steve McDonald wrote:
(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.video/msg/3d4be74dd7d39d44)
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> ... Although S-Video equipped VCRs have a lower band of recording
> frequency for the chroma sub-carrier and a higher band for the
luminance
> portion, the signal comes off the medium in composite form and then
is
> separated into two circuits to be output on an S-Video connector.
> Composite-only equipped VHS, 8mm and consumer Beta VCRs work the same
> way, but don't separate the two portions before they are output.
They
> also use the same "color-under" chroma sub-carrier and higher
luminance
> recording frequency system. You will note that a standard VHS
recording
> can be played on an S-VHS VCR and output as an S-Video signal, as
well
> as in composite form and an S-VHS recording playback can be output as
> either an S-Video or composite signal.
> S-VHS, Hi-8 and ED-Beta VCRs don't record a signal as "S-Video"
on
> tape. S-Video exists only as a transfer protocol on connecting
> circuits, except in a TV set with an S-Video input. There the signal
> remains as separate chroma and luma, for processing and onscreen
> display. If a TV receives a composite signal, it is separated into
> chroma and luma, as part of its pre-display process. The only
advantage
> of S-Video, is to keep the chroma and luma separate during the
transfer
> and this reduces the "crosstalk" or interference between the two
> frequency segments. This allows for more pure and richer color
> transfer, but it's only a relative benefit, not an absolute one.
> It appears that in most or perhaps all cases, component signal
> converters send a better video image than either S-Video or composite
> protocols will do..
> There are professional analog component recording formats, such
as
> BetaCam and M2, that have two separate recording tracks, one for
chroma
> and one for luma. With most digital video formats, it's all encoded
> into a single recording track.
> Equipment that has component outputs separates the output signal
> into three chroma circuits for RGB; the luma signal is derived and
> reconstituted from them in the unit to which they are sent.
> Steve McDonald
jfaughnan
Mar 18, 11:53 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "jfaughnan"
Date: 18 Mar 2005 11:53:11 -0800
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 11:53 am
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
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CORRECTION:
I wrote:
How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RGB RCA (3
component) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality S-video cable
with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
The RCA output is NOT RGB. It's video and two audio. May apologies.
So this should read:
How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RCA (1 video
composite, 2 audio) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality
S-video cable
with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
C.J.Patten
Mar 18, 12:19 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "C.J.Patten"
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:19:32 -0500
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 12:19 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
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There are a lot of factors involved but, all things being equal, go with the
s-video connector.
The most graphic demonstration I've had of the difference was a Sony
Playstation hooked to a 32" Sony XBR TV, first with RCA jacks then with the
S-video.
Absolute night and day difference. The RCA seemed messy in comparison with
the s-video, almost smudged.
Try both hooked up to a TV and switch between them. I'd be surprised if you
ever used the RCA jack again when you can avoid it.
C.
"jfaughnan"
news:1111175591.570754.200300@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> CORRECTION:
> I wrote:
> How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
> transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RGB RCA (3
> component) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality S-video cable
> with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
> The RCA output is NOT RGB. It's video and two audio. May apologies.
> So this should read:
> How much quality is lost when a @1998 SONY Hi8 analog camcorder
> transfers Hi8 output with a high-quality (Monster $40) RCA (1 video
> composite, 2 audio) to mini-video jack cable VERSUS a high quality
> S-video cable
> with a separate audio-only RCA to mini-jack cable?
jfaughnan
Mar 18, 1:35 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "jfaughnan"
Date: 18 Mar 2005 13:35:57 -0800
Local: Fri, Mar 18 2005 1:35 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
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You've convinced me! I'll return the Elura 90 and get a camera with S
video input.
Another correspondent kindly sent a list of resolutions related to
video media. This isn't directly related to the issue of using the
S-video vs. mini-jack/composite video connectors, but it does show that
when one has recorded in Hi8 there's a lot to lose with an inferior
output solution. If VHS is comparable to 8mm, the jump from VHS to Hi8
is comparable in magnitude to the jump from Digital camcorder to HDTV.
The following list provides maximum playback resolution for different
camcorder video sources:
8MM - Up To 240 Lines of Resolution
8MM XR - Up To 280 Lines of Resolution
Hi-8 - Up To 400 Lines of Resolution
Hi-8 XR - Up To 440 Lines of Resolution
D8 (Digital 8) - Up To 500 Lines of Resolution
Mini DV - Up To 530 Lines of Resolution
High Definition - Up To 1080 Interlaced Lines of Resolution
Steve McDonald
Mar 19, 3:42 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: bigrocketm...@webtv.net (Steve McDonald) - Find messages by this author
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 03:42:25 -0800
Local: Sat, Mar 19 2005 3:42 am
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How ...
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I sent a personal reply on this to jfaughnan. He can share it if
he likes. In brief, I vote for S-Video for this transfer purpose.
Steve McDonald
jfaughnan
Mar 19, 6:34 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "jfaughnan"
Date: 19 Mar 2005 06:34:03 -0800
Local: Sat, Mar 19 2005 6:34 am
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How ...
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Steve's email message may have been zapped by my spamcop filters. I've
sent him a different email address to use and if he's able to resend
I'll post here.
I'm also summarizing this discussion on my blog, so it will have an
update too:
http://googlefaughnan.blogspot.com/2005/03/recvideo-google-groupsusen...
John Faughnan
Mar 19, 3:22 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: "John Faughnan"
Date: 19 Mar 2005 15:22:17 -0800
Local: Sat, Mar 19 2005 3:22 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How ...
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Below are excerpts from Steve's. Other than the value of S-video, he
urges the use of very short connectors. He has one composite plug cable
that's only 4 inches long!
.... If you want to do a lot of conversions with your new
camcorder, there would be a noticeable weakening of the colors with an
RCA composite connector....
...Myself, I wouldn't settle for anything other than S-Video for
transfering my Hi-8 recordings and I've been doing plenty of that. I'm
very pleased how well my old analog metal tapes have held up and how
good the images look when put on digital tape.
If you do use composite to transfer the Hi-8 footage, a
high-quality video cord, that is as short as possible, would be best.
I
wouldn't use an audio cord, even though it would match the connectors
and work, as they usually don't have wires that are as thick or
well-shielded as those intended for video...
... One of my Sony 4-pin composite video/audio plugs has just 4-inch
wires
that end in female inline jacks, for connecting with separate composite
and audio cords.
andreifilip...@gmail.com
Apr 4, 4:04 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.video
From: andreifilip...@gmail.com - Find messages by this author
Date: 4 Apr 2005 17:04:21 -0700
Local: Mon, Apr 4 2005 4:04 pm
Subject: Re: Analog transfer via S-video vs. mini-jack from Hi8 source: How much quality loss?
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
The easiest way to compare: send both signals to the monitor.
Technically S-Video connection was invented as something in between
composite (one cable) and component (3 cables) types of connection. You
actually have 2 cables in one S-Video cord. One is used for the
Luminance (brighter-darker) signal, second is for color information.
Presumably the signal loss is less with S-Video compare to RCA, since
you don't have to mix two signals on one end and separate them on the
other.
FAQ Video, http://faqvideo.com
Friday, October 28, 2005
Days of a week
[121 Words]
日* 日曜日 * Sunday * Dimanche * Sonntag
一* 月曜日 * Monday * Lundi * Montag
二* 火曜日 * Tuesday * Mardi * Dienstag
三* 水曜日 * Wednesday * Mercredi * Mittwoch
四* 木曜日 * Thursday * Jeudi * Donnerstag
五* 金曜日 * Friday * Vendredi * Freitag
六* 土曜日 * Saturday * Samedi * Samstag
Life insurance in plain language
- Term Life:
- Fixed premium in fixed period of time (e.g. 10, 20 years--hence the name "term");
- only pays if death happens within term, otherwise money is gone;
- pure death benefit;
- no cash value; - Permament Life:
- Whole Life:
- like Term Life except it's till death; - Variable Life
- fixed premium;
- premium includes insurance cost (basically a whole life policy, this part is fixed) and the 'subaccounts' for investment (this is the variable part)
- has garanteed minimum value, but can go above it;
- make mutual-fund-like investments within the policy; - Variable Universal Life
- variable premium (makes it 'universal'), with the possibility of reducing or even eliminating it, but can go the other way also; the idea here is to have a high investment portion so the gain from the investment will cover the insurance cost, which can be quite high when you're older;
- variable value;
- more flexible;
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
All about termite and fumigation
Chemicals for fumigation:
1. Vikane Gas Fumigant (Sulfuryl Fluoride)
2. Methyl Bromide (stopped using in CA since September 2000)
1. Vikane Gas Fumigant (Sulfuryl Fluoride)
2. Methyl Bromide (stopped using in CA since September 2000)
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Eighty percent of life
Is just showing up (Woody Allen). If that's true, perhaps the other twenty percent is the efforts to finish well or making a decent exit.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Friday, September 09, 2005
Bed sizes
- Twin: 39 x 76 inches
- Twin X-Long (this is for a slightly longer twin bed, which is commonly found in dorm rooms): 39 x 80 inches
- Full: 54 x 75 inches
- Queen (the most common bed size): 60 x 80 inches
- King: 76 x 80 inches
- California King (or "Cal King" - found mostly on the West Coast, longer and narrower than the regular King): 72 x 84 inches.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Hurricane Katrina
It devastated some of the Mexican Gulf costal areas. Among the most hit, New Orleans. Eighty percent of the city is under water (see pictures, streets that are dark are under water) mainly because the average elevation of the city is below sea level (some say the city is a bowl). I saw the video of a car sinking into the moving flow of flood water, and the camera crew ran to rescue the driver inside. Another story is a man who lost his wife (probably dead) to the flood water after holding on to her hand for as long as he could. And the last words he heard from her was 'You can't hold on to me...take care of the kids.' Two school-age boys were standing behind the man, looking lost. I suppose there would be thousands of heartbroken stories that have yet to be reported. The death roll of the catastorphy is feared to be into the thousands. Now the problem at the hands of the authorities is how to get the water out of the bowl.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
黄淑帧
[121 People]
艺海拾贝 科海探珠 — 访第三届“上海市巾帼创新奖”获得者黄淑帧
□王 阳 摘自：上海妇女2004年3月刊
黄淑帧，生于1938年，1957年就读上海第二医科大学医疗系。毕业后，在上海市第六人民医院、市卫生学校、市儿童医院医学遗传研究室工作。1985 年，赴美国科罗拉多医学中心及贝勒医学院任访问教授，后又在美国国立卫生研究院任高级研究员。现为上海市儿童医院医学遗传研究所研究员，上海交通大学医学院教授。
黄淑帧长期从事医学遗传学和胚胎工程学的研究，在遗传病的基因诊断、基因治疗、转基因动物和干细胞等领域成绩卓著，在国内外已发表论文 400多篇，30多次荣获国家级、省部级和上海市的重大科技成果奖，现已授权发明专利3项、实用新型专利1项，申请发明专利5项。作为首席科学家，黄淑帧连续5次获得美国国立卫生研究院科学基金。
曾经有一个艺术梦
学生时代，黄淑帧并没有学医的打算。那时，她热衷于文艺，忙着学琴，练声，演话剧。在上海市第三女子中学念书的时候，她担任学校话剧团团长。
市三女中，是黄淑帧心中最留恋的地方，她的组织能力都是高中三年锻炼出来的。那时候，为了排一台戏，从舞台灯光、道具、布景、服装到导演全都由她这个团长来统筹，舞台上的门窗请木匠师傅帮忙做，演出的服装请家长帮忙裁剪，最要紧的是，她还要给每个人安排角色。一台戏，只有一个主角，作为团长，她要协调，要做 “演员”的思想工作，更要以身作则。在《祥林嫂》里，黄淑帧就演别人不想演的角色“媒婆”，可当她扎着一块头巾，摇着一把扇子，活灵活现地走上场时，却一下子赢得了满堂彩。
除了演戏，黄淑帧还参加班里的女声小组唱。清晨7点，8个女中学生就开始在琴房里练声。她们的无伴奏合唱 《田野静悄悄》，让专家赞不绝口。而在练声的过程中，黄淑帧也渐渐懂得了怎样保持团队的和谐——不要突出个人，要用心倾听别人的声音。
花一样的年华总孕育着花一样的梦。临毕业时，颇有艺术天分的黄淑帧想报考音乐学院钢琴系。她7岁开始练琴，接受过很专业的训练。可后来，她又觉得弹钢琴不合适，“我不是个很安静的人，喜欢动脑子，让我整天面对一架钢琴恐怕不行。”
黄淑帧说自己小时候的性格象男孩，没有女孩的忸怩，不爱哭鼻子，整天都是风风火火，忙进忙出，即使是考大学那阵子，还惦记着排戏。而且好奇，什么都想学，每年的寒暑假一定要学一样东西，打字，拉手风琴，学唱越剧，指挥……
虽说黄淑帧的这些爱好最终都没有成为她的专业，可对艺术，她仍然兴致勃勃。毕业工作后，她曾在市工人文化宫独唱“蝴蝶夫人”，用美声来唱评弹“蝶恋花”，还得了优秀演出奖。
黄淑帧属于“玩兴很浓”的一种人，可她也绝对是一个很用功的学生。从小到大，黄淑帧一直是学校里的优等生。
黄淑帧说，弹钢琴，英语叫play piano，玩也是学习。玩得越多，知识面越广，读书就越轻松。
投身医学，成果斐然
选择医学，是因为黄淑帧看了一部苏联电影《没有说完的故事》，影片讲一名乡镇医生通过努力，让一位全身瘫痪的病人从病榻上站了起来。这部电影让黄淑帧对医生职业充满了敬意，她甚至觉得做医生治病救人，要比搞文艺有意义的多。于是，报考了上海第二医科大学医疗系。
黄淑帧上的是二医大医疗系本科，后来却被选入了在当时很超前的重点培养班生物物理专业。毕业后分配到上海市第六人民医院生化研究室工作。这是一个新筹建的实验室，她在室主任的带领下，凭着在学生时代培养锻炼出来的能力，从零开始，着手于实验室的建设和各种生化分析技术的建立，并很快适应了新的工作，作出了突出的成绩——和复旦大学遗传所合作发现了中国第一例异常血红蛋白HbM病。
可是正当黄淑帧踌躇满怀，准备在事业上大展宏图的时候，文革开始了。她被安排到第六人民医院626病房，当时病房推行“医、护、工一条龙”，晚上一个人值班，既要开医嘱，又要冲葡萄糖，凌晨三点，她要到楼下把水车推上来，冲满每个热水瓶，接着拖地板，搞卫生，然后为病人盛粥，换药，吊针，开刀……
在那个年代，黄淑帧没有对自己的工作感到失望，而是抓紧机会学习，培养了自己承受挫折的能力。
文革结束后，黄淑帧调到上海市儿童医院医学遗传研究室，继续她那中断了10多年的血红蛋白病研究，组织并参加了全国血红蛋白研究协作组，开展了大规模的血红蛋白病调查，发现了八种世界新型异常血红蛋白变种。随着改革开放，黄淑帧走出国门，两度赴美。黄淑帧说，她去美国，既不是赚钱，也不是镀金。当时儿童医院医学遗传研究室已发展为上海医学遗传研究所，她的丈夫，该所的所长曾溢滔希望妻子在美国能建立一个据点，和美国研究机构建立长期合作关系。
在国外七年，黄淑帧代表研究所和美国国立卫生研究院的科学家进行合作，在血红蛋白病研究方面取得显著的成果——获得了美国的专利，在国际顶级杂志发表研究论文，并以首席科学家的身份，申请到了美国国立卫生研究院5项科学基金。
1996 年，上海医学遗传研究所接受了一项极具挑战的国家863重大课题——转基因动物/乳腺生物反应器研究，曾溢滔所长给妻子打电话，要她回国。没有太多的考虑，黄淑帧就辞别了美国国立卫生研究院的合作伙伴，放下了正在进行的分子生物学研究，携带着转基因羊研究所必需的实验用品飞回了上海。
飞机抵沪，已是晚上9点，黄淑帧没有回家，直奔实验室。黄淑帧说自己是个喜欢做事情的人，有事情做，最开心了。
转基因羊的研究，对黄淑帧来说，是一个全新的领域。之前，她对羊的认识仅限于图片，电视，并没有接触过真正的羊，而现在，她却要让羊的乳腺按需分泌药物。为了尽快掌握羊的胚胎发育情况，黄淑帧来到了条件艰苦的农村，解剖了近百只山羊，进行了数千次的实验，通宵达旦地查阅国外文献资料，反复研究山羊生殖器的结构。经过无数个不眠之夜，她终于掌握了家畜胚胎发育的规律，设计和完善了转基因动物的研制路线，并制作了山羊非手术的胚胎移植器。这一科技创新使得转基因山羊的成功率提高了一倍多。1998年春，运用这些新技术获得的转基因羊咩咩坠地，黄淑帧如愿以偿地从它的乳汁中得到了用于治疗血友病的人凝血因子IX！这意味着人类通过动物乳汁来大量生产珍贵药物成为可能，该项研究被两院院士评为98中国十大科技进展之一。
在成功培育出转基因羊之后，黄淑帧又将视线移到了年产量远高于羊的牛身上。她带领课题组的同事们构建了人血清白蛋白的重组DNA载体，并于1998年5月进行了转基因试管牛的试验。1999年 2月，国际上第一例携带有人血清白蛋白基因的试管牛“滔滔”问世，这一成果再次被两院院士评为1999年中国十大科技进展之一，被科技部评为1999年中国十大基础科学新闻之首。
除了在转基因动物领域成绩卓著外，黄淑帧在地中海贫血的基因治疗和大量获取干细胞上也做出了巨大贡献。
“地中海贫血”是一种遗传性血液病，因无药可医，患者只有靠输血才能维持生命，但输血过多又会引起患者体内铁质含量沉积，导致心脏衰竭而亡。经过十多年系统和深入的研究，黄淑帧首次采用药物羟基脲来治疗地中海贫血，获得成功，成为国际上采用这一方法治疗地中海贫血的范例。同时，在对中国人特有的地中海贫血类型的发病机理进行深入研究的基础上，黄淑帧又构建了特异的反义RNA表达载体对该病进行实验性基因治疗研究，取得了满意的效果。该成果获得了2002年度上海市科技进步一等奖。
作为国家十五863项目的负责人，黄淑帧还首次建立了人/山羊异种移植嵌合体模型，在活体水平上证明了移植的山羊体内存在人源性细胞，为探索人类疾病的干细胞治疗提供了科学依据和一种可行的途径。在该领域，她申请了4项发明专利。
从医四十多年，黄淑帧因突出的科学成就而先后被评为上海市三八红旗手、上海市劳动模范、上海市先进女职工标兵和上海市优秀专业技术人才。
当获得这些荣誉时，黄淑帧非常认真地说，那都是领导的功劳，更是大家的功劳。“是领导发现了我，我只是一个工作人员，干事情的人，得不得奖都一样工作。”
黄淑帧的想法就是这样简单，对她来说，认准一件事去做，没有太多的患得患失，没有太多的包袱，工作充满着乐趣。
女儿，母亲骄傲的话题
采访之前，我们就听说黄淑帧还得过一个特别的奖——在第二届全国五好文明家庭表彰大会评出的十家“全国五好文明家庭标兵户”中，黄淑帧的家名列榜首。
黄淑帧的丈夫曾溢滔是中国工程院医药卫生工程学部的首批院士，国际著名的遗传学家，他完成了20多项具有国际水平的科研成果，曾被授予“国家级有突出贡献的中青年科技专家”称号，并获得全国五一劳动奖章。
如果说黄淑帧和曾溢滔这对科学家夫妻的结合是强强联手的话，那他们的女儿更是青出于蓝胜于蓝。
提起女儿，黄淑帧一脸的骄傲。
1992年，女儿曾凡一从美国6000名优秀大学毕业生的激烈角逐中脱颖而出，被美国宾夕法尼亚大学医学院录取为医学和生物学双博士生，成为当时被录取的第一位来自中国大陆的双博士留学生。
女儿承继了父母的衣钵。可让人称奇的是，端庄美丽的曾凡一极具音乐天赋。受酷爱艺术的母亲的影响，曾凡一四岁开始学琴，后又学声乐。她曾在上海首届外国流行歌曲大赛上，荣膺桂冠；在中央电视台举办的MTV大奖赛上，获得特别奖；在美国华盛顿，她成功举办了个人独唱音乐会……
问黄淑帧如何教女有方，黄淑帧笑了。她说她和丈夫平时工作忙，一直很注重培养女儿的独立能力。曾凡一上小学一二年级时，和外公外婆住在一起，夫妻俩每星期给女儿一定的生活费，让她安排每天的支出。在女儿的生活上，她这个做母亲的不用操很多心。该吃什么，该穿什么，该买什么，女儿从小就懂。
对女儿的学业，黄淑帧也不是“盯”得很紧，功课全凭自觉，只要做好了，就可以看电视。成绩考砸了，就分析原因，哪里跌倒，哪里再爬起来。不过，黄淑帧也有逼着孩子去学习的，那就是学钢琴，钢琴不练不行，这是为了磨练她的意志，干一件事就要把它干好，不能半途而废。
那一年，曾凡一准备出国。走之前，黄淑帧夫妇俩和她谈话，说，在上海你什么都有，前途一片光明。到美国，你所有的学费、生活费都得自己解决，一切从零开始。曾凡一没说什么，临走时，她给父母录了一首歌“大约在冬季”，她唱道“没有你的日子里，我会更加珍惜自己，没有我的岁月里，你要保重你自己”，请父母自己保重。还写了一张纸条，声明是自己要求去美国的，在美国一定努力学习，以优异的成绩来报答父母，请父母放心。
这首歌和这张纸条，让黄淑帧至今感动不已，女儿的独立，女儿的责任意识，让她颇感欣慰。
鉴于曾凡一在学业、人品、才艺上的优异表现，我国驻美使馆选派她为唯一参加世界女青年会百年庆典的中国代表。当曾凡一身着旗袍，手擎五星红旗款款步入会场时，不凡的气质赢得了在场所有人的喝彩。
而此时，在大洋的彼岸，黄淑帧、曾溢滔夫妇也为女儿的成长自豪并幸福着。
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Father's Love Letter
My Child…
You may not know me, but I know everything about you
…Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up
…Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways
…Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered
…Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image
…Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being
…Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring
…Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived
…Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation
…Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book
…Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live
…Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made
…Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother's womb
…Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born
…Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented by those who don't know me
…John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love
…1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you
…1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your Father
…1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could
…Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father
…Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand
…James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs
…Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope
…Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love
…Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore
...Psalms 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing
…Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you
…Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession
…Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul
…Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things
…Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me
…Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart
…Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires
…Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine
…Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager
…2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles
…2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you
…Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart
…Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes
…Revelation 21:3-4
And I'll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth
…Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus
…John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed
…John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being
…Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you
…Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins
…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled
…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you
…1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love
…Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me
…1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again
…Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen
…Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father
…Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is…Will you be my child?
…John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you
…Luke 15:11-32
Love, Your Dad. Almighty God
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