Back from Crabtown....

So how about Wily Mo Peña? I haven't finished catching up on stuff, so I wonder what Dawn had to say about WMP....or Lugo against the Yanks, for that matter!

My fantasy team won without my help...although I could have pulled Harang off the bench for Sunday's start. oops.

My wife didn't mention to me that she paid $10 for internet access in the room Saturday before she headed off to her conference. So I was stuck watching the endless NFL draft instead of surfing the Web. At least later in the afternoon I hit the sports museum they have right next to OPCY. Ten bucks for a couple of floors' worth of exhibits. Mostly Babe Ruth...the Orioles...the Colts. Ravens stuff seems too recent to be museum-ified.

Went to Virginia Friday to see Erika's grandmother, who's got some Alzheimer's. Although, the multiple-tellings of the stories make it easier to remember the details. Our biggest fear was that she might not recognize me after I emerged from the use of her bathroom. That was allayed, though. But since I'd forgotten contact lens solution, I was attending to my lenses at her sink for a couple of extra minutes. She was pretty nice, and really appreciated the visit, and that we re-arranged her furniture for her.

Virginia has an exit for something that I think was called Backlick Road off I-95. Ewwww... Of course, there's also Pohick and Powhite (as in Trash?)....so let the Confederacy-bashing begin! (Cue "dueling banjos") At least they have leaves on their trees. That was mildly saddening, driving back up and having the leaves get smaller and smaller until they were blank in NY and CT.

Baltimore

Hey, tomorrow's our trip to Baltimore for Erika's veterinary conference. She's looking for vendors to give her sweet deals on equipment for her practice opening in September(-ish). I insisted we go to an Orioles game, and since they're in Cleveland this weekend, that meant going a day early to see a Thursday night game. Well lo and behold, they're playing the Red Sox! Yee-hah!

This reminds me of when I visited my brother in Tampa back in '04. Let's see who the Rays are playing...Red Sox. Our whole section behind the dugout was Red Sox fans. Probably will be something similar in Baltimore. If only Dice-K were pitching, too. Should keep the place only half-empty.

A Guy in the Corner from my fantasy baseball league has plans to attend the game. That'd be interesting to meet someone from the league. I did actually attend a book reading with Big D, but we didn't know of each other at the time last October. We're sort of trying to arrange a league outing to see a game, maybe in Philly to appease New Englanders and Mid-Atlantickers in the league. Doesn't help the Midwesterners, obviously, but they're outnumbered, so we'd get who we could.

My friend Johnny is available for fun and games in Silver Spring Saturday. I haven't seen him since 2003, when my older daughter and I went to see DC with him. (She was 4...potty trained enough for the long car ride, so unfortunately the 2-year old missed out.) I've got a great picture somewhere of Lindsey sweating profusely, hugged by the Orioles mascot at OPCY.

Sox-Yanks among other stuff

So here's what I think. The Yankees' bats are as hot as they may bet all season? Yes? No? Maybe? And they got more than enough runs against the Red Sox. But the reason the Red Sox won was simply because their pitchers went deep into games. 5 runs in 7 innings isn't bad against NY. The 7 innings was more important. The question is, later in the year, will the Yanks still be getting 5-6 runs a game, EVERY game? Remember, this is off their sweep of the Indians scoring 8-9-10 runs a game.

Seussical wasn't as good at UConn as it had been when I saw it at the Oakdale with Sandy Duncan. I should do a Google to see if anyone else notices the pretty strong pro-life message. I mean the obvious "a person's a person, no matter how small" also piggybacks the fact that Horton and Gertrude are adopting an abandoned baby by that tramp bird Macy.

While extending our new front walkway, I found the pipe from the house to the septic tank in the front yard. So now I've got to lift and raise the stones higher to provide clearance, because it just wasn't worth trying to rout out the stones to have it fit snugly over the pipe.

Still can't see the Futurama with Fry's dog looking for him at the pizzeria. My wife starts crying thinking about it, so I have to switch it off. At least it gave me an excuse to watch more baseball during the 8-hour Cartoon Network marathon.

foam alert

Okay, I cracked open a homemade beer, and the foam wasted half of it and made a big mess. I do believe the foaming calms down after a few weeks, so I shouldn't be tempted to jump the gun like that.

Yesterday was the first day of spring, as far as I'm concerned. Now it's warm (65-70?) today and sunny, too. wow.

I found a dead mouse in my hockey bag. I think it came from Erika's old garage before we moved. Oh my did my gear smell. It was too wet from the melting snow on the garage floor from a few weeks ago to wear, so some of it is being laundered, while the bigger stuff (pants, shin guards) will be hosed down and pumped full of febreze this weekend. This explains the chewed skate laces.

The wife likes her burgers well done, and it's cost me the timing on my own medium burgers when she doesn't eat with me. I've overcooked 2 in a row, although last night's only by a couple of minutes.

Some day I may play with the template on this blog. The white background and crappy font suck. I like Arial, among the major fonts. My old Mac Plus in college had lots of great fonts, including one that looked like overplayed stereotypical lefty printing (reverse slant to the letters). I had a left-handed professor, so I handed in a paper with that font to her once. Slight amusement, I believe.

Seussical the Musical

Apparently this is playing at the theater at UConn this weekend. My parents have gotten tickets for all of us...I've seen it but Erika and the kids haven't, so it should be good. I saw it at the former Oakdale (which car theater is that now? Oh yeah, the Chevy Theatre) a few years ago with tickets I snagged from a woman in my old hockey clinic. That production starred Sandy Duncan, so I'm sure I went out and bought some Wheat Thins afterwards.

That reminds me, I should get back to playing hockey on Thursday nights. 15 bucks for like 90 minutes of ice time, I think. It's so darn expensive compared to basketball (free), and I'm definitely not as good, although good enough to at least take my shifts regularly. It was weird finding a place to wedge my insulin pump in my gear, I had it pinned by the elastic waistband of my hockey undershorts (which have velcro to hold up the big hockey socks) without a clip, and as long as I didn't get hit or fall on it, there wasn't anything to worry about. My only time on skates this past winter (which I think ends this weekend, weather-wise!) was at Rockefeller Center in December.

And I'm stunned that Nabisco has discontinued Twigs, the sesame-cheese snack sticks. I checked with their customer service center online. The worst part is that they'd still show a box in the picture of all the flavor varieties on the back of kinds they still DO make -- chicken in a biskit, vegetable thins, sociables, better cheddars....I think they stopped making the Bacon crackers, too. But Twigs were freakin' awesome!

46 bottles of beer on the floor...46 bottles of beer

So I bottled the beer yesterday while watching playoff hockey. I only broke 1 bottle while operating my dad's old bottle-capper. I wonder how capping technology has advanced in the last 30 years. Anyways, when you break the bottle while capping, you pretty much crush the first inch or so of glass....so you can actually pour the beer into another empty bottle and try again. The beer probably won't be ready for another month or so, but I'm sure every week or so I'll check in with a bottle :)

Red Sox look good this afternoon (instead of morning, with the rain delay). I hate warnings to pitchers....I actually bet Ervin Santana left fastballs out over the plate partially out of fear of coming in too far on Sox batters. Anyways, the Vlad thing seemed to be an obvious accident, so what's the deal? Maybe the ump figured it was getaway day for the Angels after losing a couple...they might be short-tempered?

So after the monsoon on our wedding day at the house, we had Home Depot put a new roof on in January. Well they goofed. During yesterday's several inches, water was running down the wall in a couple of spots, plus a couple of drips. We're using it to water our herb garden before taking that outside for the spring (whenever THAT comes). It's all insured, so one guy came out yesterday...thought he fixed it (didn't), and now the project manager is coming tomorrow morning.

And now that I've bottled the beer, I was able to return my empties since I wouldn't need them....I had no idea that I had 102 bottles to return. That paid for half of a new beer for me to try tonight. Brooklyn Brewery's Pennant '55 Ale or something like that. Seems like a good way to honor Jackie Robinson? ha!

Lastly, sadness at Virginia Tech today. Kinda freaking me out if we're going to Erika's vet school reunion there in the fall!

The perfect complement?

So, remember that David Lee Roth video where the really fat guy offers advice to the up-and-coming singers? "Try the Quad Burger at Irv's...."

I thought of this as I mixed two beers together last night. Sam Adams Double Bock, which is strong and very "brown". And Smithtown Brewing's Double White Ale, which is extra-spicy and pale. Neither beer was terrific on its own, but mixed together, a worthy experiment. In any event, that would be a double-double, or a quad, of some sorts.

I drank it while watching American Idol with Erika. Egads, I sorta like that show now, and I *never* used to watch it. Also fun to try to play piano along with the band. Our piano needs tuning pretty soon. It was last done last summer, and although it's not as bad as it was then, it still could use the proverbial (and literal) tune-up.

Post-Easter ramblings

So....

My first chance to see NESN right now. What's the decorum for hanging the USA flag over the green monster? There were obvious flaps perforated throughout it, but that's gotta be necessary to keep the thing from getting caught in the wind, a flag of that size. Red Sox games never stream as clearly as other teams...must be the demand!

I don't blast the volume too loudly....and yet I still hear people's speakerphones over the broadcast. People are just f-bombing rude around here. Either pay for an office, or realize you're not the only one here. Some day (like when I'm in my 2-week notice period) I'm going to swear audibly into their speakerphones as a hint to pick up the damned handset.

My uncle's got a 50-inch HD set.....very nice for the end of the Masters Sunday.

Easter Sunday dinner was lamb. well done, it's not the worst meat in the world, but eesh. Mom wouldn't tell me, but there's always plenty of good stuff for options when my Aunt Beth cooks. I provided the dinner wine, a cabernet-shiraz combo that was good (maybe not $25.99 good, but whatever).

We're starting a stone walkway to our front door. 32 inches (4 16x16 squares) done, 32 feet to go. Hopefully Home Depot won't discontinue the stones before we finish, right?

Dice-K's okay

But did you notice the Red Sox get the leadoff guy on between innings 2 through 7? (Was it 8, too? I switched to the radio feed when MLB.tv took forever to stream...)

I don't like the idea of him not getting his run support! Greinke's good, but not that good....

On the bright side, no work today! Thanks, Jesus! (I will suck it up for the Saturday night vigil Mass in Oxford....oh please don't read all the Old Testament passages....some churches kinda pick and choose 'em. Although with this church, they sing everything, so I will block off a couple of hours of my schedule from 8 to at least 10 tomorrow night.)

The Dice-Man Cometh....

Check out this ad from Japan

This should be interesting....I wonder how much Wally got paid for his brief appearance. And what the Japanese people must think of the guy!

Anyways, I sent an email to Comcast last night....since they've just bought our cable company, I gave them the old "Hey, the Red Sox are the most popular sports team in New England, so when are you adding NESN?" line. Double that with the fact that MLB.TV blacks out the internet stream since most of Connecticut is in the Red Sox home territory, leaves me NO way to watch the game....unless I use one of those fancy IP re-router thingies to make MLB.com think I'm somewhere else besides home.

Anyway, the game will be on here at work at 2. So I'm eager enough!

Bosley's Law update!

So last night, having just finished providing my own yellow to an otherwise-clear toilet, I proceeded to spit out my Crest Pro Health rinse, a very pretty shade of blue, before flushing.

Anyways....planted some MORE grass seed last night. Good to see the robins this morning nibbling on a free meal, I suppose, huh? Sheesh. They can't eat ALL the seed, they'd grow grass out of their stomach or something.

House is always a good show that I never watch. Caught it last night. Everyone's got shows like that, right? They like them, but they're not addicted to them, so it's cool to catch an episode now and then without having to make the "investment" to watch them all. (For me, it's 24 and Lost....I watch all the Family Guys, but sometimes not until they pop up on adult swim.) Another good show like that for me is The Office. I've been watching that more on Thursdays, but it's not like an addiction, maaan!

Fantasy baseball team has the early lead this week over Mega. Looks like the Sunday night Mets-Cards stats DO count this week after all. That's a relief, since I have LoDuca and Eckstein. I had to swap Aaron Hill for Nick Punto, so that I could have a second 3rd baseman on nights when Chipper Jones isn't playing. Of course, the roster change is effective today, after the off-night for the Braves.

An announcing idea....2 main talkers, and then one guy whose job is to interject with all the factoids and stuff he can find online during the game. Like, if the announcers go off on a tangent discussing Chinese food, this 3rd guy can spot-check for highly reviewed restaurants in the city they're playing in.

Digging up dead grass

There's a fine spring tradition.....taking a metal garden rake, trying to rip up all of last year's dead crabgrass, and then grading the lawn and adding new grass seed. Apparently 12,000 sq. ft. of seed wasn't enough. Of course, I overseed like crazy, but we had to buy 2 more bags yesterday, and it started raining before I could finish prepping the area for it. Part of the time was lost when my 8-year-old thought she could help. But she doesn't have the strength to really chew up the stuff I'm trying to take up. Sure, she got some dead grass on the rake, but left plenty behind. Anyways, our whole back area needs to be re-seeded, and then the crabgrass-preventing fertilizer applied.

Meanwhile, the best sports day of the year, when you combine opening day baseball with the NCAA championship. I will have the mlb.tv package going strong!