Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Blame game

While the New York Yankees have missed the post-season after 13 straight years, the blame game has begun in New York. Tabloids blame broken-down old players. They blame young pitching that didn't pan out. ESPN.com blames the organization for bad drafting (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=olney_buster&id=3589629&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1)

But the heart of the issue is really altogether something entirely different and being vastly overlooked: Mariano Rivera. Obviously, the Yankee fans, the media, and even his own coaches and teammates hate him. In the final home game at Yankee stadium, the cameras panned away from the scene, as if on some *wink wink* magical cue (obviously arranged by the Steinbrenners), Derek Jeter grabbed Rivera from behind while the catcher, Jorge Posada, began to beat Rivera into a conscious-less pulp.



Police subdued Rivera's wife while the beating continued.



There you have it. Its all Rivera's fault.



Here Posada is seen "macing" Rivera after giving up another homerun.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Tough Decision

So, there's a tough decision facing someone in my family, and prayers would be appreciated. Its been an issue for a while, and now the finality of that is coming to fruition. Your thoughts & prayers are appreciated.

My dad has to decide what to do. Lifelong Yankee fan (except for a few years living in Oshkosh where he masqueraded as a Brewer fan): does he watch the final game in Yankee Stadium history? or does he watch the ultimate in week 3 NFL matchups, Green Bay v. Dallas, a place in which Dallas has never won, and after tonight, still won't?

Decisions....please pray. Its eating him up inside.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Eowyn's walking

Yep. The reign of terror has officially begun. Now there's nowhere she can't go. She prefers to walk everywhere, but when time is of the essence, she still scrambles faster on all 4s.

I know she takes some after me, because when she waddles around she more resembles my late-Grandpa Painter more than anyone else: a little bowl-legged, belly sticking out. I'm waiting for her to tell me that "when you get older the belly shrinks" or to bring over a dozen donuts.

We'll get video of her roaming around soon.

Ike, part II

Ike passed over with not too much damage to our property. Lots of downed limbs of different sizes. Our lawn looks like, well, a hurricane came through.

There were several neighbors with huge limbs down, and some who even had trees come down. Several folks I know had new skylights created for them in their living rooms by crashing trees. The university had several trees & power lines down, including a tree that apparently landed on a car moving past. I don't know that to be true, but from what I heard no one was hurt, just the car was trapped by branches.

We didn't have power for about 53 hours. It was another 24 before our phone & internet were back up & running. Fortunately, it stayed cool after the storm passed. High's have been low 80s, and low's have been mid-50s.

Eowyn only fussed one night. It was a bit warm in her room, but otherwise I'm not sure she noticed anything terribly different.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Ike

Yes, we're riding out Hurricane Ike today. It should hit us pretty hard fairly squarely sometime early in the afternoon. Winds are already gusting pretty good, and we do have a Tornado watch.

We've already had some pretty good sized limbs fall, and I'm expecting larger ones later. We also have extra water, a cooler of ice in case power goes out, and our stove is gas. We should be ok.

If we lose power, our phones will not be operable since we signed up with Vonage, which runs through the internet. Our cell phone should be ok.

But, as long as power doesn't go out so I can watch football, we'll be ok.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Monkeys

So, I was watching football Sunday, because as I said I'm a football nerd. And I was really into some game, because when I watch football, I get into the game. And I look to see where Eowyn is, and she's atop the couch.

She had climbed up onto the couch, and from there proceeded to scale the back of the couch. I grabbed her before she had a chance to fall over the back onto the hardwood floor. I set her down to see if that's really what had happened, since I had been watching football. Sure enough, she did it again.

She was quite proud of herself.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Green Bay uniforms

So I'm a football nerd, and proud of it. But I wanted to share this.

A few weeks ago I was looking at something online about former Green Bay Packer uniforms (I'd tell you why, but I don't want to admit it) on www.packersuniforms.com. Come to find out, around 1994 Ron Wolf (then the General Manager of the Packers) had proposed new uniforms, something along the lines of the glittery gold that the St. Louis Rams use with their unis. He didn't like the "Michigan Maize" that Green Bay used. He said the bylaws stated Green & Gold, not Green & Maize. So, he had proposed the new uniforms, the board of directors had accepted the proposal, and everything was set to go, but then he had a realization: Green Bay needed a better team, not better uniforms. The proposal was set on the back burner, he got Reggie White, and rest is history.

Want to know what those uniforms would have looked like? Scroll down. They would have looked just like this, except with a G. Same colors, just without the striping:






Fantasy Football

I'm all for fantasy football. I kind of like it, but I'm not die-hard. Quite frankly, I don't care to root for players to do well on teams that I "non-fantasy" hate. Like Dallas & New England. But I do it every year, and every year I ask myself, "Why am I doing this again?"

So, I was checking my team tonight to make sure I wasn't doing too lousy. And I notice an advertisement on the page. It reads:

"Free Draft Kit Bundle & StatTracker®!"

All you have to do is:

"Open a Revolution MoneyExchange Account and get the Draft Kit & StatTracker bundle for FREE, plus get $10 in your MoneyExchange account*"

Seriously now...Who offers THAT in exchange for financial services??

Thursday, September 4, 2008

New Semester



This new semester, which is just over 1 1/2 weeks old, has brought many new changes for us. Maren began working recently, and Eowyn began daycare.

Eowyn is handling the daycare well, though it has messed up her sleep schedule. She had been going to bed at 7:30 every night, sometimes sleeping until 8:30 or even 9:30 the following morning. Lately she has been putting herself to bed (not literally, of course) at about 6:30 each night. Otherwise, she's adjusting to the newness of being away from Mommy during the day.

Maren enjoys having something else to occupy her time, but she misses Eowyn during the day.

I just concluded auditions & callbacks for Arthur Miller's All My Sons, which will go up in October. This means, of course, that we'll begin rehearsals very soon and I'll be away a bit more again.

For the most part, we had very little wind from the Hurricane, and we didn't get nearly as much rain as was being forecasted. We feel pretty lucky.

Some pics from August:



Had to spend a night in the hospital.



House hunting??



The good stuff.



Nina came from Germany for a visit!



So did Grandpa.



Baylor & Jetta after a hard day's work.