So Sue Me...

Ja, it's been a full week again. Been swamped with work...although the swampedness has changed from that of dreadful misery to something a lot more productive. I am at least temporarily shedding my mantle of crankiness toward work...see how long it lasts this time.

Went to the Sox game Tuesday. They lost, just like they do every time I see them on a Tuesday. They rebounded rather nicely last night though thanks to an outing from Loaiza the superstud.

From the home opener through the middle of May, I was awful concerned about the big righty from Tijuana. Seemed like he was giving up gopher balls left and right...and many a stathead was quick to point out that he was already almost halfway to his total long balls allowed (LBA) all last season by May 9th. Guess what? He's given up a whopping 2 since then, and has dropped his ERA by .40 from where he started the month.

Biggest ??s on that team right now are Valentin and Crede. Is Crede pulling a Paul Konerko 1st half of 2003 performance? I've always disliked Valentin, but kinda like Koch (and some would argue Konerko), he's gonna be tough to move.

It's not often you'll find curmudgeonly old Republican me recommending a piece on Michael Kinsley's Slate website. But this piece on the cushy life of the backup catcher is nothing short of hysterical.

Just stumbled across this, too...weather for baseball geeks! And check out those groovy blue seats.

Here's everything you ever wanted to know about the dollar-carry trade.

Egads! Been a full freakin week since I've posted. Lazy lazy me!

Sox take 2 of 3 from Cleveland after unleashing all their weapons of mass run production, start crucial 4 game set against Twinkies through the weekend.

I can't emphasize enough how important this series is. Granted, it's only May, but it's really time to make a stand. The 2 Twin wins in Chicago were both great pitcher's duels that we could have easily won if we just...started...hitting. Sunday (kinda like last night) was an awesome display of sheer power, I'll settle for something in between. Loaiza on the bump tonight--it seems like he's not giving up as many gopher balls as he was earlier on in the season (remember opening day, anyone?). All I'm asking for is 7 strong innings and a little run support.

I see now Maggs and Harris are both out of the lineup after last night's outfield fender-bender. Let's hope Gload is a servicable replacement in right.

One thing that concerned me earlier on in the season was that Ozzie seems to place too much emphasis on getting wins for his starters. There were a couple games which Loaiza and Buehrle started where the Sox were trailing by 2 or 3 after 7 innings but were left in. Is/was it too much faith in the starters or too little faith in the pen?

That Jon Garland's gonna be one hell of a ballplayer someday, Feisty.

So with the Sox on the road this weekend, Kris and I were talking about how to get our baseball fix. We briefly considered taking a ride up to Minnesota, but 7 hours each way in a car is too much for me to handle over the course of 2 days. We could have flown round trip for $146, but then we'd have to fly back first thing Monday...and her dad is one of those guys who insists on being at the airport at 5 am for a 7 am flight..so that's not happening. The Tigers and Indians are both out west, the Brewers are in Puerto Rico and St Louis is here to play the Chubs.

So that leaves minor league ball as the best option. The Flyers and Jackhammers are both home this weekend, but it's opening weekend for both and tickets might be hard to come by. We'll see.

West Wing finale last night. Didn't quite get all the flashbacks to Bartlet's days in New Hampshire, but oh well.

Double Dip!

Tok the day off today to catch the Sox afternoon game that was the token weekday part of my season ticket package...and it looks like I get 2 games for the price of one. That's 18 innings of baseball, 15 of which will involve beer. Life is good...any day away from work is these days.Now, if only the weather would cooperate...it looks like yet another big ol' green rain blob is working its way across Illinois.

Couple political pieces worth checking out: Country Storehas a link to an NY Post story which currently isn't working about the sport of intern bagging by New York State legislators.

Hugh Hewitt has a blog entry on RCP about 3 Americas: Ted Rall's, Teddy The Drunk's, and everyone else's.

Agent Mulder?

Mark Mulder is a perfect fit for the Sox, but what's it gonna take to get him here?

Atta boy George...way to focus on the important issues.

Zogby Piece

He's no Charlie Cook, but I still like John Zogby...although a lot less after this premature ejaculation. I saw this on my discussion list last night and then 2 people linked to it today, and I just now got down to reading it. Grrrr.

Sox do their best 2003 impression at SkyDome yesterday and end up getting swept out of Toronto.

Anyway, in more upbeat news, met Rob up at the yacht club yesterday and got the boat pretty much all rigged. We are going to try and sneak out Thursday evening and shake it down and tune it before he heads out of town for a week.

Whatever happened to Michael and Melissa?

Dark Side of 20...

So here I am, 28 years and 364 days old. Funny, I was listening to my iPod on the way to work this morning (it's like 55 here today...WHERE IS SUMMER???) and that Joe Walsh song "Life's Been Good" came on. I don't own the CD, so I have no idea how it ended up on there...must be from a compliation or something. And on top of that, it actually found its way into one of the 1000 playlists I have created and never listened to. Well, make it 999 now.

I bitch a lot, and freely admit it. The past 6 weeks at work have been the absolute rockiest I can remember at any job I have ever had. It's just been non-stop stress. When I was trading, I had plenty of miserable days, but there would be a few good ones here and there to lighten things up. I'm just not seeing that with what I'm doing now and it's kinda got me down. But aside from that (and the fact I drive one of these instead of one of these), there really ain't a hell of a lot I can complain about. My job pays the bills just fine. I'm not one of the 27 million Americans without health insurance. I live in a sweet loft on the western edge of downtown in the absolute hands down greatest city in the world with a wonderful girlfriend. I have a great group of friends who encourage me, challenge me, and knock back beers with me both here and all over the country. I went to 2 excellent schools and somehow managed to graduate in spite of chugging beers by the gallon 5-6 nights a week. Although divorced, my parents are both happy and living the lives that they've wanted to. Granted, I couldn't imagine either of theirs being my own, but oh well. I have 3 of my 4 grandparents still, and have never been to a funeral until last summer. I always say what a dreadful listener I am, but I'm told that I do it a lot better than most.

I have a certain sense of pride in being from Upstate New York. Sure beats a cornfield. I have a certain sense of pride in that I always seem to be pretty well-dressed, have all my hair, and look good in baseball hats. I have too much pride to keep babbling like this.

I'm gladder and gladder every day that the Sox didn't sign Sidney Ponson. I was so high on his bandwagon in the offseason. Not even his miserable final 3rd of the season in San Fran or his 8+ ERA in spring training could temper my enthusiasm for wanting to see him on the South Side. Whenever people brought up signing Freddy Garcia, I would just shake my head. I've heard from a client of mine in Seattle that he parties like a rockstar and is a real headcase...and the Sox have one of those already with Danny Wrong (who incidentally got torched in his first minor league start the other day). But looking at the numbers thus far this year, I was wrong as usual:

Picks left Player TEAM W L ERA G GS CG SHO SV SVO IP H R ER HR HBP BB SO
1. F Garcia SEA 1 1 2.11 6 6 0 0 0 0 42.2 38 10 10 2 0 10 33
2. S Ponson BAL 2 2 6.25 7 7 1 0 0 0 40.1 49 31 28 1 3 17 18

Falling Behind Again...

I say it all the time, but I swore up and down when I started this blog that I'd make it a point to update it frequently. But between the move, work, and a little travel, I never ever get the opportunity. Grrrrr.

Anywhoo...Went out east last Saturday to Tuesday with 2 purposes...to visit my HS buddy Rob as well as to catch the Sox at Camden Yards. Flew into BWI early Saturday morning, and Rob was right there to fetch us at the airport. Much like me circa 1995-2000, he's turned into a class A Saab Snob. We rode in his fresh new 9-5 Aero back up to Gaithersburg and made a much-needed Starbucks pit stop. Let me tell you--Starbucks in the tony DC suburbs is a whole different ballgame from Starbucks in downtown Chicago. The one we went to Saturday was staffed by bratty high school kids who don't know a mocha from a Boca Burger. Give me the tattooed, pierced (and that's just the women) baristas in the lobby of my building any day. The little snotnosed punks didn't understand the concept of "room for cream."

Got back to Rob's house and debated what to do that day. Our original plan was to head out to the new wing of the Air and Space Museum, but then it dawned on us that on a sunny Saturday, the place would probably be a madhouse. So instead, we went to Wegmans, which just opened a superstore near Dulles airport.

Many people, my girlfriend included, have no idea why people from upstate New York rant and rave about Wegmans. They can't understand how we can get so worked up over a grocery store...surely it can't be that different from Whole Foods or Jewel, right? Wrong. Wegmans sells the quality of foods that you'd find at a Fox and Obel at normal grocery store prices....and it's 100,000 square feet instead of 2,000. The best part though? They sell all the delicacies that I grew up with that are impossible to find anywhere in the Midwest: Zweigle's hot dogs (I always have a hell of a time explaining to people what exactly a white hot dog is...there's one person I know who gets it about white hots and just about everything else in life, but that's another story for another time), Bully Hill wine, Country Sweet Wing Sauce, which, please note, is NOT Buffalo style wing sauce, Spiedie's marinades ...all of which bring back such memories of my youth. In fact, my first job was at Wegmans, and they even gave me a scholarship!

After dropping $150 on regional delicacies, we headed back up to Rob and Renee's for a cookout. Threw some nice juicy Wegmans-bought steaks and chicken on the grill and proceeded to get all kinds of sauced on some great microbrew. Rob and renee's neighbors to the rear had left their 20 year old kid home alone for the weekend, so he threw quite the beer bust, which I was awful tempted to crash. High point of that had to be the 2 kids rounding 3rd base and heading for home on top of the air conditioner in the backyard.

Sunday we rode up to Harper's Ferry, WV (I can now cross West Virginia off my list of states I still need to visit). It's a national historic siteand a damned near picturesque one at that. Oddly enough, the thing that I found most fascinating was the railroad tunnel, which you can see in the top photo on this train geek page. I probably took 10 pictures of it, and sooner or later I will figure out how to link to images from here without having to sign into Ofoto first. One interesting thing about taking a ride with Rob is that he has one of these stupid little doohickeysthat seems to be wrong more than it's right, but he insists on relying on it even if he's just going to the post office.

Monday we headed up to Baltimore to catch the first game of the Sox-Orioles series. Took the tour of Camden Yards in the afternoon...fascinating stuff. I didn't know that when the city of Baltimore gave the O's permission to build a new park, that they were only given about 5 acres to do it in and were told that they couldn't tear anything down. That's how they ended up with the warehouse in right field, as well as very little nearby parking. Got to check out the broadcast booths and the press box, too bad Jay Mariotti wasn't there. Got our drink on at the Wharf Rat before the game, and walked away happy in the pouring rain as the Sox held on for yet another one-run win.

Came back Tuesday to yet another maelstrom at work. One of these days, it'll calm down...really, it will. Went and saw the lifeless Chubs get singlehandledly beat by Steve Finley.

That's all for now. I'll have some thoughts on the Sox and on turning 29 tomorrow.