Noah's Ark?

Being a person who believes in science and what is tangible and real, I find that science often interfears with my faith. I read a story about an expedition taking place this summer to Mount Ararat in Turkey (gobble gobble). The purpose of the expedition is to try to get to a structure believed to be Noah's Ark. There is a mass some 45 feet high, 75 feet wide and 450 feel long that is partially exposed due to some thawing that took place last summer. They plan on photographing the mass in an attempt to prove it's Noah's ark.

Now while I would love to believe it really is Noah's Ark, and that thousands of years ago Noah rounded up 2 of every animal and corralled them into the ark, it's just so unbelievable. First of all, how the hell does a boat get up in a mountain that is 17,000 feet above sea level? Secondly, how could the animals have survived up in the moutains in such harsh conditions? Thirdly, if they did survive how did they manage to make it down the mountain to populate the rest of the earth?

What I think will happen is one of two things...

1) They won't be able to get to the exact spot of where they believe the ark is located because of weather or the climb will be too steep. 2) They will make it, snap some pictures, but prove nothing conclusivly leaving the door open for years and year of further debate.

My new Hero

This guy designed his own Tron suit. Sorry if any of the female viewers get sexed up over this guy. Read the full story if you dare @ Tron Costume

Maybe it should be www.spuds.com/blog

Things look like they are shaping up nicely for the cruise. For a while it looked like a vacation was out of the question due to all kinds of scheduling conflicts. In May, Audra and Mike's baby is due, Rachel's youngest brother is graduating from college, Dylan receives his first Communion, Samantha has confirmation and then we have Rachel's store getting reayd to move. But we managed to squeeze a cruise in. We both need a little break from the daily grind. Especially poor Rachel who has worked something like 14 of the last 15 days.

On Saturday our passports arrived. I'll share this since I wish I had known this prior to booking the cruise. Apparantly you can use your birth certificate, but it can be a hastle in certain countries. So one of my co-workers recommended getting a passport. So last friday we applied for our passports, with the intentions that if we didn't receive our passports in time, we would just use our birthday certificates. Little did we know, that when you apply for a passport, they mail your birth certificate off to the State Department. So without a passport or birth certificate, we would have been screwed. We wouldn't be able to leave the ship, or possibly even get on. So this forced us to expedite our passport order, which doubles the price. So for two passports, plus to expedite the process it costs around $350 :-(. Considering the passport is good for 10 years, I guess it's not so bad. So if you're planning on traveling outside the country, make sure you apply for a passort well in advance.

Playing golf on Saturday was a lot of fun, now the only problem is that I can't stop thinking about golf. I'll be in NY this coming weekend, so I probably won't get to golf again for at least weeks. Damn!!!

The Sopranos is getting downright silly now. Last nights episode and a few others this season were more of a comedy than they are a crime drama. Plus what's with all the blatant advertising during the show? In the first 2 minutes, they mentioned the Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer. Then a few minutes later, Tony and John practically did a commercial for the Maserati.. Then towards the end of the show at Carmellas dad's birthday party, they mentioned Rolling Rock beer and showed several cast members drinking Rolling Rock. Plus you have old men falling off of roof tops, people getting their feet crushed by runaway Cadillacs, and Tony practically having an orgasm talking about going for an ice cream sundae. The show is bordering on ridiculous.

However, the show that still kicks major ass is The Shield. Every episode seems to get better and more intense. One week they are stealing money from the Armenian mob, the next they are busting a latino gang who are smuggeling guns. On top of that you throw in pregnant girlfriends, a political race, power struggles in the police station. The show is just one giant pressure cooker. One of the more interesting running storylines is how they are profiling a serial rapist who targets elderly women.

I think it's fair to say that without my Tivo, I probably wouldn't watch half the shows I now watch religiously. Monk, Sopranos, CSI Vegas, Nip Tuck, The Shield are on at weird times for the most part. Much easier to sit and watch them at 6:00 when I get home from work than staying home on a friday night to catch Monk at 10:00. Was also glad to see that Viva La Bam and Wild Boys new seasons began last night. Those two are also on my Tivo list. I urge everyone to watch just one episode of Viva La Bam, one episode was all it took to get me hooked. Bam's friends and family are just so amazingly unqiue, its like nothing else you'll ever see.

Ok, so I'm a couch potato...

Motion...

The new CSLR challenge theme for this month is Movement. Here is my submission. I like it, but I think I can do better. I may need the assistance of Rachel to capture this the way I envisioned it. I can still submit two more entries, I have a few more ideas, we'll see what happens.



So far the weekend has been nice. Rachel's aunt and uncle were down visiting from Pennsylania yesterday. me, Mike, Rachel's dad and uncle went to play golf yesterday. The weather was perfect for golf. It was in the 70's with low humidity and bright blue skies. We teed off at 2:00 and managed to fit in 24 holes. We probably would have gotten closer to 30 in, but we encountered a REALLY slow group in front of us on the front 9. They quit after 9 holes, so we were able to play at a quicker pace after that. Mike and I hustled Rachel's dad and uncle for $4, each. We played best combined scores for a dollar a hole for the last 12 holes. Once we were done we headed back to Rachel's parents for some grilled burgers and hot dogs, it was a fun day.

The Giants got their QB. I think the Giants may have been better off with Philip Rivers their initial 1st round pick. I think overall he has more tools than Eli Manning, plus it costs the Giants 3 more picks in the draft to conclude the trade for Eli. Hopefully I am wrong and Eli is the Giants All Pro QB for the next 10 years. I've been hoping for a new Giants QB for years, I think Kerry Collins is too unpredictable to be a good QB. Some days he would throw for 350 yards and throw 3 TDs other days he would throw for 350 yards with no TD's and 4 INT's. The Giants should be a lot more interesting to watch with Eli behind the center this year.

Watching 21 Grams on Friday night. I can't really say it was a bad movie, but it wasn't a very good movie either. The 3 main actors, Sean Penn, Benicio DelToro and Naomi Watts all did great jobs of acting, but something lacked from the story. Plus I'm not a big fan of movies that jump around from the past to the present. The movie was nothing like I imagined to be. That's not always a bad thing, because I felt the same way about Secret Window, but enjoyed that movie a great deal. The one thing I will say about the movie is that it's a very depressing movie. Lots of death, sickness and failure. One thing the movie proved to me is how unpredictable life can be, and how quickly life can change. In some cases for the worst, other times for the better. If you are in a depressed mood, I wouldn't suggest watching this movie. It really paints a bleak outlook on life.

Bring Your Kids to Work Day... A smashing success

I jokingly said I was going to call in sick today so I could avoid an office full of rugrats running around. Well had no idea a day off would cost me $200....

My boss went out for lunch yesterday, I ate lunch at my desk. My boss gets back about an hour later and says that the back drivers side window on my car was shattered. I thought he was kidding, then I walked down to the parking lot and found out he was definitly not kidding. The back window had a hole about the size of a lemon, and the rest of the glass around it was cracked. I walked to the security desk and asked to see the security tape from the parking lot. We review the tape, but realize the security camera only covers the front 2 rows in the lot. I was parked in the 3rd row back.

I couldn't drive the car home like that, since any little bump would cause more of the glass to break off. I would have left a trail of glass all the way home. So I started searching the yellow pages looking for an auto glass place that did mobile service. The first two places I called didn't have my window in stock, so they couldn't replace it till the next day. The 3rd place I called would call me back with a price. They called me back, said they could be at my office between 3:30 and 4:00 and it would cost $225. Perfect.

Anout 3:15 my cell phone rings, it's a heavily accented man on a shitty cell phone. Between the phone cutting in and out and his accent we were having trouble understanding one another. He asked me for my address, he asked how I spelled the street name. I don't think the guy knew the English alphabet very well because he I had to spell the street name slooooowly, one letter at a time. I should have told the guy forget it right then and there, but that would have been rather judgemental and racist of me.

They show up around 4:00, realize they have the wrong window. They brought a drivers side front window, I needed the drivers side back window. They said it was no problem (they kept calling me Mr. Mike which I found amusing). They vacuumed out the glass from my car and removed the remainder of the glass. They said they could come to my house with the correct window that night. Sounds great. I give them my address and they say they'll be there around 7:00. As I sat watching TV, half asleep on the couch I heard a car alarm beeping. At first I thought I was dreaming, but soon realized it was my car. I ran upstairs looked out the window and saw the two auto glass guys outside my car. I turned the alarm off and went outside.

After fiddeling around for about an hour, they discovered that they had again brought the wrong window. This time they brought the passenger side back window. At this point they had the whole back panel of my car off, laying on the back seat. The weather stripping was pealed away. Keep in my mind my car isn't even a year old. The airbags were exposed (but not inflated), and there were tools all over the back of my car. At this point I had 0 confidence in them. They said they could come back in the morning with the correct window. I made up an excuse that Rachel would have the car tomorrow. I told them I could call them tomorrow if I needed them.

Ok the knuckleheads were gone, but now I still had no back window, my back door was taken apart, and there was a chance of thunderstorms. I called Rachel at work. Luckily she had the name of an autoglass place that had replaced her windsheild when a rock cracked it. I called the 800 number for the new glass place, made an appointment for the next day and the price was only $195. Mike and Audra let me park my car in their garage for the night. So I didn't have to worry about it raining inside my car.

Luckily things went a lot better today. The glass company called me this morning saying they had a cancellation, so I could bring my car in early. We got there at around 10:45, the guy was done by 11:00. Goes to show you that when someone knows what they are doing, it's pretty easy work.

On the way home Rachel and I started for lunch. We then headed to Home Depot for some gardening supplies. When we got home, I washed the vinyl siding in the front of our house. I got this stuff made my Goo Gone that works awesomely. It had chemicles in a bottle that hooks to your garden house to clean the siding. The front of our house doesn't get much sun, so when it rains, it takes a long time to dry off. So we had some mold on the siding. I followed the instructions, and the siding looked a little better, but still not very good. Rachel went in and got a sponge, she wiped the siding where I had cleaned and the mold and dirt whiped away. The stuff advertised on the bottle, no scrubbing, but overall it worked VERY well. I only had a small 2 step ladder, so from the steps to about 10 feet up the siding looks great, above that it still looks like crap. I'll have to borrow Rachel's dads ladder and get the top of the house.

I then applied this stuff called 0 vegetation. It's supposed to completely destroy all types of weeds, grass, etc. We've had a problem with weeds growing between the cracks of our patio blocks, so I hope this stuff works. When I applied it with my sprayer, it seemed to cause the weeds to sort of bubble, so I am pretty confident it will work well. It was about 90 degrees here today, so I hope it didn't dry too quickly before it had a chance to soak down and do it's magic.

So overall a productive day albeit an expensive one...

Oh Joy

Tomorrow is Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Apparantly it was started because fathers would typically only take their sons to work and left their daughters out of all the fun. While that may have been a common practice years ago, I like to think that we have progressed far enough as a society where we don't have too many dads saying "oh that's mans work, sorry pumpkin". Plus, is it any more correct to exclude boys from coming to work with their moms or dads, than it is to exclude girls from coming to work? My company happens to call it "Bring Your Kids to Work" day, which I think is probably the most correct way of doing things. Let boys and girls alike see how shitty and demoralizing office work can be.

Question...

Have you ever sucked the jelly out of a jelly donut, and then filled it with choclate swirl ice cream?

Hot Damn!

Oh what a glorious weekend, well as far as the weather goes anyway. Apparantly the warmer weather didn't help A-Rod as he is now something like 0-12 in the Boston series. Apparantly he needs to play on the surface of the sun for it to be warm enough for him to perform well. Geesh. Im sure by the end of the end of the season, guys like Sheffield, Giambi and A-Rod will have their usual gigantic numbers, but for right now they look like a bunch of little leaguers out there. All things considered though, they are still only 1.5 games out of first. A win today during Patriot Day is will give them a split of the 4 game series. MY earlier theory about how there would probably not be a run away leader in the AL East, appears to be correct. It seems like all the teams in the AL East are winning one, then losing one, losing two, then winning two. It looks like the Blue Jays are going to be awful (damn Canadians), and the Devil Rays are starting to show their true colors. So a three team race between the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles looks like a pretty safe bet.

They say it's supposed to be around 90 degrees today. WOW. A week ago it was in the 40's and raining non stop, a nice turnaround! Lets give it up for Mother Nature ladies and gentleman.

Apparantly there is a scandal going on in the porn industry. A porn actor, Darren James contracted HIV while filming a porno in Brazil. It was then passed on to a female porn star named Lara Roxx after she had sex with him. What's scary is that James had sex with about 12 different women in the time between the Brazil shoot and when it was discovered he was HIV positive. As of right now, Roxx is the only lucky winner of sexual roulette. The porn industry is expected to essentially shut down for a 2 month period while they revamp their screening procedures and do extensive testing. I heard that about 50 porn stars are in a voluntary "quarantine", but I don't know to what extent. But it sounds like it would make one hell of a reality show. Image it, 50 porn stars locked up in a house together under quarantine. They can't have sex, and there are cameras in every room of the house. Hmm on second thought, porn stars are probably pretty dull and boring when they aren't doing what they do best. If anything good comes out of this HIV scandal, I hope its that they ban all men from porn and focus exclusively on hot woman on woman action. Cases of women passing HIV onto their female partners is very rare. And I think many guys will agree woman on woman love is love in it's purest, most beautiful form.

Rachel and Ispent a nice day in Maryland yesterday visiting with my mom and sister. We took a nice ride over to the marina on Solomons Island, and enjoyed the great weather. Rachel got a little burnt, but it was otherwise a beautiful day.

If any of my readers are planning on purchasing a new car, you may want to consider forking out the extra cash for the side curtain airbags. I saw these crash tests on the news, and when a midsized sedan is struck from the side, it's not pretty. The crash test dummies head shattered the drivers side window when hit on the passenger side at 35 mph. The side curtain airbags made a HUGE diference. Instead of smahsing your head into glass, the side curtain airbags inflate and your head hits into a soft pillow. I was happy to see that the Honda Accord was one of only two midsized sedans that passed the side impact crash tests. Woohoo.

Good Friday

I know Good Friday was last week, but to me today is also a good friday. This week it's 75 degrees and sunny outside. Plus I get to leave at 2:00 today so I can meet Rachel to submit our passport applications. Woohoo.

MY photo wound up coming in 4th place. Considering this is only the 2nd challenge I've entered, and I managed to crack the top 5, I am pretty pleased. I would like to thank Gayle , for convincing me to submit a photo for this months challenge. She told me that it would do well, and she was right. Deep inside, I'm a little mad that I dropped from 2nd to 4th, but I have a feeling that whoever came in 2nd had a bunch of friends vote for them at the last minute. I wouldn't be mad if it was a great photo, but it's really nothing spectacular. I've seen dozens of photos of a snowy countryside like that. How many photos of lonely Amish dudes do you see ;-).

One of the guy I work with just got back from a cruise. This co-worker of mine, has a real fondness for monkeys. So he and his wife get off the boat one day and decide to do a rain forest tour. He asks the tour guide if they'll see any monkeys and he was disapointed to hear that it was unlikely. Apparantly monkeys can hide pretty welll and usually head to higher ground when they feel threatened by humans or some other predetor. But there was still hope, the tour guide asked if anyone else wanted to see a monkey, a few others in the tour said yes so he decided to show them a monkey. They walk for a while and they come across this grass thatched hut. Outside the hut is a little pedistal, with a monkey. He showed me photos of this monkey, and this is the fattest monkey I've ever seen. Apparantly next to the monkey, there is a sign that read something like "Hi my name is Bobby the monkey. Please help my owner keep me fed with tasty fruits and snacks. Please make a donation". Beneath the sign was a cigar box. Apparantly my co-worker isn't the only person to love monkeys. He explained that people were dropping 5 dollar bills in this box like crazy. He said the monkey must make several hundred dollars a day. This also so explains why it's so fat. While monkeys are usually swinging and climbing trees, this one sits on a perch most of the day eating grapes. With its little round belly, had the monkey been wearing a road gray Don Mattingly jersey and drinking a Dr. Pepper he would have been a dead ringer for me. Primates truely are our not so distant cousins.

I'm geared up for the Yankees-Red Sox series this weekend. Of course a sweep of the Sox would be nice, but a split is more likely. I like the Yankees chances tonight, with Vasquez facing Wakefield and their chances on Monday when Kevin Brown pitches. Tomorrow Curt Shilling who always destroys the Yankees pitches, and Sunday Jose Contreras pitches for the Yankees, who also frequentyly destroys the Yankees. Hopefully with the warmer weather that is expected this weekend, the Yankees bats will come alive. I would love to see A-Rod plant a few over the "Green Monster" and Matsui to wrap one around the "pesky pole". I hate the Red Sox, as every good Yankees fan should, but I must admit Fenway is one awesome ball park.

Fear this chicken
Hope everyone has a great weekend. And if Rebecca Romijn is reading this... "Hey, how you doooooin?"

Current Mood:

Eye Eye Eye

On my drive into work today, the sun was actually out and it was nice and warm. So I rolled the window down a bit. As I was driving along, something flew into my left eye. Whatever it was, it has ittitated my eye unbelievably. I had to stop at CVS to get contact lens solution and eye drops. I took my left contact out, kept it out for about an hour and my eye felt pretty good. So I popped my contact lens back in. A few minutes later, this woman from the 5th floor stopped by my office. My eye started to hurt so bad again, my eyes were tearing, my left eye was involuntarily twitching and winking, I was a mess. It felt like she would never stop talking. I can't even remember what she said. I just wanted to take that lens out sooooo bad. I've since moved on to Visine for alergies, but still can't put my left contact back in without watering and tearing of the eye.



One of my photos for the song themed photo contest is currently in 2nd place. I entered the one of the Amish man walking alone up the hill with the title of "One is the Loneliest Number". Appararntly people like it. Voting ends tonight at midnight, I have a narrow 2 tenths of a point lead over the 3rd place photo and i"m way behind the current leader.

Song o' the week...

Have a new song, I heard it once and have been hooked. It's called In the Shadows, by a band called The Rasmus. It has a really haunting, but catchy bassline. I believe it's a woman who sings it, her voice reminds me of Shania Twains. But don't be mistaken, this song in no way, resembles a country/pop song. Just something about her voice that reminds me of Shania. Check it out... I think you'll like it...

They say that I must learn to kill before I can feel safe

But I, I'd rather kill myself than turn into their slave

Egg Hunt 2004...

A couple pictures from the egg hunt...The 1st one is after the hunt, little Andrew was pretty tired at that point and relaxing with his cup of juice. The 2nd is Andrew taking a header into the box of eggs. He dove into the eggs 2 more times after that.

Ideas...

The new theme for the photo challenge is simply Urban. I am having a lot of problems coming up with any ideas... Any suggestions are appreciated.

Easter = 2nd Thanksgiving?

Growing up I remember Easter as a early spring holiday, we would color some eggs, have a nice meal that was about it. Well as an honorary member of Rachel's family now, I got to partake in their version of the holiday. 1st of all the weather was way too cold. It felt more like Thanksgiving. Obviously Rachel's family had nothing to do with this, but 50 degrees and raining on Easter is just awful.

Secondly, we all ate way too much. The Easter celebration began on good friday over at Rachel's parents. It was sort of a dual celebration. Rachel's dads birthday was on wednesday, but he and Mrs. W were on vacation in Las Vegas. Rachel was off from work friday, so she helped her mom prepare stuffed manicotti. It was really good, but I missed having meat in it a bit. Then after we stuffed ourselves, it was time for dessert. Rachel's dad's favorite dessert is home made custard, so Rachel and I whipped up a batch on thursday night. It was a true colaborative effort. After mixing the ingredients, you have to stir the pot till it comes to a boil. It takes about an hour to hour and a half for it to come to a boil. It has to come to a boil slowly or the milk will scorch. So after two bowls of custard and strawberries, we headed for home. My stomach was so full and I was so uncomfortable, I just went straight to bed.

Saturday morning it was time for the Easter egg hunt over at Audra and Mike's. About 15 neighborhood kids participated. It was cute, started a bit early, but it was cute. The best part was after the egg hunt was done. Rachel and I were in the process of collecting all the plastic eggs and dumping them in this big cardboard box. Well along comes Andrew who mistook the box of eggs for a ball put and WHAM he dives in head first. It got quite a rise out of the kids and adults alike hehe. After the egg hunt, since we all hadn't eaten in a whole 10 hours, we of course all went out for lunch.

Easter Sunday we went over to Rachel's parents for dinner. We stuffed ourselves with ham, scalloped potatos, green beans, corn, rolls, mashed potatos, deviled eggs, vetables and dip, and brocolli and cheese. A funny thing happened just before we ate. Just as Rachel's dad began saying grace, Andrew started laughing hysterically. Not sure what he found so funny about it, but him laughing made me laugh. After watching Andrew open his Easter presents, we were back in the kitchen for dessert. Mrs. W had made Jello cake, chocolate crazy cake and an eclair cake. I had Jello cake, but after trying a piece of Rachel's eclair cake, I was second guessing my decision. We said our goodbyes and headed over to our house for a while. We were so stuffed, we went upstairs to take a little nap. A 30 minute nap turned into a 90 minute nap. I woke up just in time to see Phil Mickelson sink his winning putt. Very happy for him, but also just a tad jealous. The guy has such a charmed life.

About 30 minutes after we woke up, the phone rang. It was Rachel's dad asking if we were coming over left overs and desset. DEAR LORD!!!! We went over, I had an egg salad "samich" and some eclair cake. Got home in time to catch the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour and watch the Sopranos on Tivo. Judging by the amount if food I ate, at some point today I'm going to have to take the mother of all shits. I just hope it happens at work so I can get paid for it ;-).

The 90 minute nap was not such a smart idea. I had a lot of trouble falling asleep. When I finally did fall asleep around 4AM, I kept having these crazy dreams. I forgot most of them, but two of them I remember pretty well. The 1st one involved some guy in a panda suite chasing me around and yelling at me. The 2nd I was on some sort of cross between The Real World and Big Brother. I remember having a conversation with Willie Nelson, Tootie from the Facts of Life and Mr. Drummond. There was also a woman who resembled the woman from Knight Rider. The rest of the people in the house looked like thet should be in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. I remember Willie Nelson telling me that he just wrote a new song and then he got up to get his guitar. I wokr up before he returned. I guess I should lay off the sweets for a while...

Lastly... this baseball season appears to be a "bizarro world" type of season. Cellar dwellers like the Devil Rays and Tigers are in 1st place. The high priced Yankees bats of A-Rod, Giambi and Lofton have been very quiet, while one of the lowest played guys on the team Bubba Crosby is playing like Babe Ruth. Barry Bonds, one of the most feared hitters in baseball can't hit a home run to save his life. I'm sure things will turn around eventually. Bonds will get his usual 50 home runs, A-Rod and Giambi will start driving in runs, and the Tigers and Devil Rays will drop in the standings, but it sure is scary for the time being. It's like a sign of the appocolypse.

MY new catch phrase

The Deans Peanuts, has served me well. But I think it's time for a new catch phrase. So I've decided that my new catch phrase will be "It's deluxe, son". Now let me use the phrase in it's proper context in a conversation between Jo and Mo...

Jo: Hey Mo, that new MP3 player you got is awesome!

Mo: Hell yeah! It's deluxe, son!!

A local radio station (DC101) has a promotion called the Easter keg hunt. On Wednesday they took around 100 empty beer kegs and painted them pastel colors to resemble Easter eggs. Then they painted one full keg gold, which is referred to as the golden keg (how clever). Last night they began driving around hiding the eggs all around the northern Virginia, DC and southern Maryland area. On this mornings show, people were calling in as they found them. If you find one, you have to go down to Coyote Ugly tonight with the keg to claim your prize. So people had formed groups with names like "2 chicks, no dicks" and "Budwesier Bashers" and they spent the greater part of last night searching for these kegs. On my way into work, I was frantically scanning street corners, intersections and lawns looking for one of these kegs. From the corner of ones eye, a trash can can really resemble a keg. Unfortunately I take backroads to get to work, so I didn't find any. It seemed like most of the kegs were in more populated areas.

I was flipping through the channels last night and thought I saw Jesus playing center field for the Red Sox. It turned out to be Johnny Damon. Johnny is sporting this crazy, mountain beard and shoulder length hair. He looks like a Sasquatch. One more reason to hate the Red Sox.

Turn the Page

There's a photo challenge going on with the theme "Sing, Sing a Song". The theme of the photo should be related to the name of a song. I submitted this photo with the title Turn the Page for the Bob Seiger/Metallica song. It's a little sloppy, but I like the end result.

Couch Potato...

During a commercial break during tonights Yankees game, I used the self timer to snap this picture. I like the way it turned out. The room was dark except for the light of the tv. That's a fortunate thing, since the darkness across my lap hides the fact I wasn't wearing any pants. Ya know how in National Geographic they will show a hippo wallowing in muddy water and say the hippo is in it's natural habitat? Well I like to think of the couch in my living room as my "natural habitat".

Play Ball...

I'm really looking forward to the Yankees game tomorrow night. Even though the Yankees technically played 2 games last week in Japan, I see tomorrow as their 1st game of the season. A game that takes place at 5 AM may as well not even happen as far as I'm concerned. Desperate for some Yankees baseball, I remembered that my sister had given me a 100th Anniversary Yankees DVD for Christmas. I popped that puppy in and man, did it take me back. I jumped to the part about the Yankees teams from 1980-2002. Those are the teams I grew up watching and continue to watch. Although the Yankees have an amazing history, hearing about Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth doesn't give me the same joy since I never saw him play in my time.

The parts about Don Mattingly literally gave me goosebumps. He is still my all time favorite Yankee player. Watching him growing up, he seemed so much larger than life. In reality, he was a small man by todays standards. Under 6 feet tall and weighting only about 180 pounds with a slight build. It still amazes me how sweet a swing he has. He generated so much power, its amazing.

Then they highlighted the dark times of the Yankees in the late 80's and early 90's. Times when a Yankees pitcher could pitch a no hitter, and still lose a game. Then they got to the recent golden years of great Yankee memories. The up and coming stars like Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, the trades and free agent signings to get Wade Boggs, Paul O'Neill and Scott Broscious. Seeing this made me realize something.

The Yankees 2004 team may have an all-star at just about every position, but to me guys like Kevin Brown, Kenny Lofton and Alex Rodriguez still aren't Yankees to me. While I'm glad to see them in Yankee pinstripes, they haven't proven they have a HUGE heart like Paul O'Neill. Or that they can produce late game heroics like Scott Broscious and Jum Leyritz. Those players to me are true Yankees, great Yankees. They never quit, they put 110% into every game, they played the game with fire and intensity. Perhaps if I see A-Rod plant a grand slam in the seats in Game 1 of the World Series, like Tino Martinez did in 1998, he'll be more of a Yankee to me. There is something much more rewarding when you see a young player like Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada as a rookie and see them blossom into a superstar. Have a team of ready made all-stars just isn't as fun. I miss Alfonso Soriano, he was a Yankee, an up and coming star. I like Jason Giambi, but I don't think he has the same amount of heart I've come to expect from other Yankees first baseman. Gary Sheffield may drive in 130 runs this year and hit 45 homes runs, but he doesn't have the personality of Paul O'Neill. I doubt I'll get that same feeling that something big was about to happen when he steps up to the plate in the post season. When John Leiber takes the mound in a must win game, I'll still wish it was Andy Pettite in his place.

I think some of the new Yankees can earn their pinstripes, Hideki Matsui is only in his 2nd year as a Yankee, but to me he's already proven himself. The Verdict is still out on Sheffield, Giambi, A-Rod and Lofton. There have been many men who have worn the Yankee pinstripes, but there is a small elite group who stand out as Yankee greats.

The 2004 season should be an exciting one, I look forward to it, but can't help but miss those Yankees teams from the mid and late 90's. I think I know what Paul Simon meant when he sang "Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?".

Picture of the Day...

Here's a photo from the Amish Country. One of my favorites. Those long bearded folks sure can build some pretty looking barns...



To see the rest check out....

http://www.pbase.com/squilky/amish_country

Jack Frost can kiss my ass....

Ok, this is the first full week of regular season major league baseball games. I woke up this morning, walked out of the house and the little temperature reading in my car read that it was 32 degrees outside. NUCKING FUTS!!!! So if you have one of those cutsie little "Let it Snow" or "Winter Wonderland" signs or flags outside of your home, it's time to take them in replace them with a nice spring sign. Ya know something with a nice butterfly, bird or girl in a bikini on it.

Oh and congrats to the 1st place Orioles for beating the puddin' out of Pedro Martinez and the Red Sox last night.
It was nice to see former Yankees 1st base coach Lee Mazilli win his first game as O's manager. Of course when I am at Camden Yards next month watching the Yankees take on the Orioles, I will be cursing and screaming at Lee ;-). I remember growing up, my sister had a crush on Lee when he played for the Mets. I think Rachel has a little thing for Lee as well. I flipped on the game last night to check the score and there was Lee sitting in the dugout, and Rachel did a little "Hercules, Hercules" sort of hand clap when she saw him. Disturbing...

I like the occasional Sci Fi movie, but I'm not what you would call a Sci Fi fan. The new wave of sci-fi movies coming out, just seem ridiculous to me. When I went to see Starsky and Hutch, it seemed like every trailer was for a sci-fi movie. Two of the more ridiculous ones was one that I think its called Van Helsing and one with Will Smith and killer robots. I thought Hugh Jackman was great as Wolverine in the 1st X-Men movie. Then he did that pansy ass movie Kate and Leopold with Meg "home wrecker" Ryan, and I could never see him in the same light again. Well anyway, I'm supposed to believe that this guy is such a bad ass that he can kill Dracula, Frankestein AND the Wolfman. Come on!! Then there is this robot movie with Will Smith. The movie is about a robot that goes nuts, loses it's temper and kills a human. Hasn't this been done a thousand times already? OH and then there is Hellboy. A cool movie if you're a 13 year old I guess, but what's sad is that the target audience seems to be younger adults in the generation X range. These movies will probably makes hundreds of millions of dollars, so what do I know? CGI only entertains me for a few minutes, if there isn't a story, I'm done.

Current Mood:

Misc...

My sisters, sister in law drove down to North Carolina, so she agreed to let my mom come along since she was driving down I-95. So last night Rachel and I met up with them in Maryland. We picked up my mom, and drove her over to my sisters. They hit tons of traffic on the way down, typical of a friday evening, so they didn't get to Maryland till around 11:00. We finally made it to my sisters at around midnight. My sister greeted us at the door, and look AMAZING!!! The last time I saw her she was on a respirator, in a drug induced coma, and being fed through a feeding tube. I couldn't believe how amazingly well she looked. My sister has to be one of the strongest people I've ever met. It was so nice to see her smiling and looking healthy again. If someone would have told me on March 22nd when I first saw her, that in less than 2 weeks she would be home, back on her feet and doing so well I would have thought they were nuts. It's a miracle to me, I really thought my sister was a goner.

The weather has been so awful!!! The past 3 1/2 days it's been about 1000 shades of gray with alternating patterns of pouring rain, and annoying drizzle and mist. I feel like I live in London at this point.

I've finally gotten around to posting some of the Amish Country pictures. They can be seen here http://www.pbase.com/squilky/amish_country . I've gotten a few of my recent pictures printed at Sam's Club. They do such an amazing job. The level of detail that is retained is amazing. I've found with some of the other digital photo printing places that they don't hold as much of the fine detail that is present in the original photo. That's ok for the occasional snap shot, but for landscape and close up work, the more detail the better. The Sam's Club pictures are truely amazing!

I just got a great collection of The Who, called Then and Now. If you're a fan of The Who, you'll love it. It's amazing what remastering songs sound like. I'm listening to Wont Get Fooled Again right now and I just about crapped my pants when Roger screamed, Yaaaaahhhhhhaaayyyy. You can hear all the different channels so well on the remastered stuff. I remember growing up, my sisters had The Who on vinyl and at the time it sounded great, but all that hiss and crackle now just doesn't cut it for me.

Things I leanred this week...

1) Koahla bears may be cute, but they sure do make a lot of noise.
2) The Rock is half Samoan and half black
3) Collegiate women seem to be better outside shooters than the men
4) For a liberal, Tim Robbins sure is stuffy
5) You can break an elevator with a wet umbrella
6) One of my male co-workers sells Mary Kay cosmetics and hosts facial parties
7) There are a lot more Mormons in Virginia than I would have guessed
8) Howard Dean loves pussy! (The cross blog reference o' the week)

That's all I got this week... Have a great weekend...

Pictures...

Here's a link to the pictures I took over last weekend. Hope to have the ones from the Amsih country up soon...

http://www.pbase.com/squilky/cherry_blossoms

I'm freaking out man!!!!

I have this horrible fear that someone at work is going to punk my ass today. Chances are they won't, but I am just scrutinizing everything people say. My boss (who claims he cuts his own hair at home), just swung by and said he was stepping out for a few minutes to get his hair cut. What the hell is he REALLY up to? Rachel called and asked if I could pick up a gallon of milk on the way home from work. Yeah, right!!! That's just so she can beat me home from work and jump out of a closet and scare the puddin' out of me.

So be leary today,my blog readers. If someone says your shoe is untied, don't look down, just walk up to them and punch them as hard as you can in the spine!


Current Mood: