Kickin' it up a Notch...Bush Style!

When I hear the word pirate, as most people, I envision a swarthy looking guy with bad teeth, an eye patch and a wooden leg. I don't think of Somali's with machine guns and rocket launchers. So it sounds funny to me to hear that the US Navy is fighting pirates. It brings to mind duals on the wooden plank and cannon fodder. Giant wooden barrels of rum, and singing sea shanties.

Go get em "Dubya!"

President Bush is taking his "war on piracy" very seriously. He plans on taking on vikings next!!! Troops are headed for Iceland as we speak.

"Let this be a warning to Captain Jack Sparrow and Capn' Crunch!"

-President Bush 10-30-2007-

Say It Ain't So Joe

Thursday was a sad day for Yankees fans everywhere. As someone who sat through the miserable late 80's and early 90's, looking back it really makes me appreciate what joe Torre did for the Yankees as a whole. He transformed mediocre players like Scott Broscious, Charlie Hayes and Chuck Knoblach and transformed them into world champions. He molded young players like Jeter, Rivera and Posada and turned them into perennial All Stars and future hall of famers. So it was upsetting and angered me to see the Yankees set Joe out like yesterdays trash. They didn't have the balls to fire him, so they offer him a bogus contract then knew he would turn down. Doesn't get much more cowardly than that.

I'm not ready to say changing managers was the wrong move. That is yet to be seen. When the Yankees fired Buck Showalter and brought in Joe Torre as his replacement I was so pissed. I thought Buck was the future of the Yankees. Maybe the Yankees would have won 4 World Series rings with Buck as well. Or maybe they would have only won 1 or 2, or maybe they would have won 6, who knows.

I think if the Yankees stick with a Torre trained manager such as Joe Gerardi or Don Mattingly, I think the Yankees will be fine. I think what makes Joe stand out from other managers is his relationship with coaches. Anyone can be loud and obnoxious (see Lou Piniella), but I don't know remember hearing anyone who played under Lou say they respected him. Other than Gary Sheffield and Ruben Sierra, I haven't heard many others have a bad word to say about Joe Torre. He was more like a father to his players than a coach. I think that's important. Noone wants to let their parents down, and I think thats how a lot of the Yankees players stayed motivated.

Many felt like the Yankees dynasty of the of later 90's came to an end this year. So perhaps bringing in a new manager is the right move. I just think it could have been done with a little more class. The self part of me wants Joe to retire and never manage again. But it would be a nice slap in the face to the Steinbrenners if he turned another team around and won a world series elsewhere.

Hopefully the Yankees can convince A-Rod to stay in the Bronx as well as Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. With the young arms the Yankees have, and the right pitching coach, I think the Yankees can be good next year. Very good. If Chen Ming Wan pitches the way he did in July and August all season long, if Phil Hughes pitches like he's capable and if Joba Chamberlain turns out to be a quality starter, the Yankees can continue to win a lot of games. They still have a veteran showing as well with Pettitte and Mussina. But there are a lot of ifs and uncertainties.

One thing is for sure, it will be strange seeing the Yankees dugout next spring without Joe Torre in it.

Damn Dog

I haven't posted in forever, but I finally have a reason to post. Hold on while I climb on my soapbox.

This whole Ellen Degeneris/puppy story is so ridiculous. Come on people, it's a dog. A fucking dime a dozen dog! What's so special about that dog that it's worth people sending death threats and threatening law suites? I'm not a dog person or a pet person for that matter, so maybe I'm a little incidensitive. I don't get why they can't just get another dog like the one Ellen gave to her hairdressers family. If they got that attached to THAT dog, I'm sure they would bond with the new dog as well. It's a dog. Not a child. There are millions of dogs in shelters who get put to sleep every year. Adopt another damn dog.

I think the policy of the pet placement service is pretty dumb (no pets to families with kids under 14), but threatening the poor woman who runs the service is ridiculous. All the problems in the world and Ellen has nothing better to do than cry about a fucking dog. I like Ellen and find her to be very funny and entertaining, but she's acting like a spoiled brat over this one.

Weekend Recap

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. My weekend was pretty cool. Rachel recently received this really cool book to document the first year of the babies life. It has cool stuff like a family tree, and little milestones like the first time the baby sits up, first trip out of town, first smile etc. Throughout the book there are pages where you can put in pictures. One of the sections had a spot for "mommy and me before I was born" and "mommy and daddy before I was born". So friday night I got out the camera, a lightstand, photo umbrella and flash and started snapping away at Rachel. Then I started using the camera timer and jumped in for a few shots as well. Pics came out really well. Processed about half of them on Friday night before bed. Had a few pics that were ruined because of shadows around Rachel's nose. I may need to add a reflector to my photography arsenal to lighten those shadows. I'll have to do some more reading tonight to figure out the cause. But regardless, we have some cute pics of us to document how we looked before the baby came along. Im sure by this time next year, we'll have a few more wrinkles and some gray hair ;-). I posted two examples of the pics to my Flickr account, I have to resize some others so I can e-mail them or post them to Flickr.

Saturday started out early. I was up at 6:15 and out the door by 7:00. Rachel's dad setup a tee time for us up in Leesburg at a course we never played before. We got there way early (traffic was light), so we had time to hit the range, the putting green and chipping area. I may have to start doing that more often. My short game was on fire. I was chipping well on the chipping area, but figured it was just a fluke. But the 2nd hole, I hit my approach shot to left of the greenside bunker. Got out my 60 degree wedge and pitched the ball over the trap, it hit the fringe and release towards the hole. Ball came to rest about a foot from the hole. BOOYAH!!! Par!!!

Next hole was a par 3. Hit my tee shot into the greenside bunker. DOH!!! Hit the ball out of the trap, rolled it to within 3 feet. Lined up my putt and it goes in. Par and a sand save!!! BOOYAH!!! I ended up shooting a 44 on the front. Rachel's dad struggled a bit and shot a 51. So I had a nice 7 stroke lead going into the back 9.

I struggled a little at the start of the turn and by the 13th hole, Rachel's dad was coming on strong. He birdied 15, and was closing the gap. I ended up parring 15, but still dropped another stroke. On 16 I hit my drive a little right into the rough. I had 185 to the hole according to the in cart GPS. I took out my 4 iron hybrid and took a confident swing and knocked the ball 5 feet from the hole. Missed the birdie putt, but made par. Long story short, I shot another 44 on the back, Rachel's dad shot a 41, so I still won by 4 strokes. 88-92. My second best round ever. So this year my golf game has really come along. I shot an 87 in June, an 80 at Kissena in August and an 88 in September. I hope I don't forget everything I learned over the winter.

While I was out golfing Rachel and her mom went to some craft show with one of Rachel's friends from her FB days. When we got done, we met Rachel and her mom for a late lunch/early dinner. When we got home, I showered and then Rachel and I took a quick power nap. Ate a little snack, worked on the pictures some more. Then we popped in Stranger Than Fiction. We had heard mixed things about the movie, so we decided to check it out. It was odd seeing Will Ferrell in a sort of serious role. I really liked the movie and thought Maggie Gyllenhaal was very engaging and sexy. I thought it was a pretty cool concept and liked the movie, Rachel lost interest about an hour in. Not my favorite movie, but pretty cool.

Sunday went so fast, it's all a blur. Highights, got the pics printed, they came out really nice. Swapped out all the incandescent "vanity" bulbs in our bathroom with compact fluorescents. They take a little time to warm up to go to full brightness, but when they do, man it's such a nice, soothing, crisp light. Glad we did. Plus they only use 7 watts of power vs 40. Since there are 8 of them, we were using 320 watts of power when we showered, brushed our teeth etc. Now we are only using 56 watts. WOOHOO!! Pizza Hut PZone and boneless wings! Giants win! 12 sacks for the G-men tying an NFL record. Sleepy time.