Spring

Today was about as beautiful of a day as you can possibly have in March. I took advantage this afternoon and went for a ride in the country with Gingerdog and my camera. I really need to do this more often.

Baseball

I love baseball. I love playing it, I love watching it, and I love coaching it. There is nothing better than going out to the (any?) stadium on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and just relaxing, soaking up some sun and listening to the sounds of the game, the sound of the lumber against the ball, or the underlying sound of the crowd. If a trip to the stadium isn’t possible, the next best option is sitting on the porch or in the garage, listening on the radio with a cold beer in hand.

Why this post, you ask? Well, like I said, I love baseball. This summer, I have a few trips planned to take in some games. Considering my undying love for the Cincinnati Reds, for whom I have my uncle to thank, I will obviously be attending one or two games there. I’ll be taking both of my sons to at least one of these games and it has become somewhat of a tradition to take them down to Cincinnati once per season.  I’m pretty sure they enjoy it almost as much as I do.

I also have a trip planned to visit a good friend of mine in Michigan and we will be heading into Detroit to catch a Tigers game. This is slowly turning into a tradition as well. Detroit trips are always insane, mainly because my friend doesn’t really have the patience required for city driving. He assured me earlier that all this has changed recently, so…we shall see.

The big trip, and the main reason for this post is something that has been thrown around for a few years now and it seems to be finally coming to fruition, and not a minute to soon, I might add. This June, a different friend of mine and I are going to be flying into New York City so we can experience baseball as it was meant to be, in “The House That Ruth Built”, and while I pretty much despise the New York Yankees, you cannot be a fan of baseball and not have respect for the history that has taken place at Yankee Stadium. At least they will be playing my Reds.

Coincidentally, this is also the last year for Yankee Stadium, as the organization is building a new, updated facility just down the road. Oh, and just to brag a little bit, we’ll be staying in downtown Manhattan, probably right next to Central Park.

4k

In the interest of objectivity

Since I recently wrote a little bit about John McCain and Rod Parsley, I guess I should write a little about Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Rev. Wright, apparently is a pretty angry man. At a sermon in 2003, he blamed the 9/11 attacks on us, for state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East and in South Africa.

During this sermon, in his own church on Chicago’s south side, Wright states, “God bless America? God damn America. God damn America.”

Another quote, referencing 9/11, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” For those of you unaware, this is a direct reference to Malcolm X’s speech on December 4, 1963, less than 2 weeks after the assassination of JFK. When asked a question concerning the late president’s assassination, Malcolm X replied that it was just a case of “America’s chickens coming home to roost.”

This would also explain Michelle Obama’s recent comment on how, for the first time in her life, she was proud to be an American.

As an Obama supporter, this worries me.

Rod Parsley endorses McCain

Keith Olberman is reporting that Rod Parsley, pastor at World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, has endorsed, and also serves as a “spiritual advisor” to Republican nominee John McCain. I know Parsley and his church fairly well. They are customers of mine and I visit with them weekly.

Parsley is a fundamentalist Christian. There is no way around this, and if you even begin to doubt this, I direct you to the following quote:

“I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

This seriously scares me.

Spitzer

I’ve just got to say real quick that Eliot Spitzer has really let me down.  I remember first hearing about him about 5 years ago when he was AG in New York.  I admired his drive to take on corporate greed and honestly, I kind of looked up to him, as silly as that sounds.

He risked it all, and I do mean all, on a high priced piece of ass.  Such a shame.

This is a man that would have no doubt ran for the presidency in 4-12 years.

semi-rant

Last January I ordered a new desktop from Dell.  I had bought one in 2002 and I really liked it and had zero issues with it so when it was time to upgrade, they were the obvious choice.  Well, the new desktop came and the dvd-rw drive wasn’t showing up in my settings and  I couldn’t get cd’s or dvd’s to play.

Two hours with tech support resolved the issue and it seemed pretty minor at the time.  More of an inconvenience than anything I guess.

Fast forward 14 months and I decide to order a laptop.  I’ve been jonesing for one for a very, very long time and I finally found a deal I couldn’t pass up.  Well, new laptop arrived today. Dvd-rw drive doesn’t work and it isn’t showing up in my system specs.  Wtf orly?

5 hours with two tech support agents and one very pissed off Dell customer later, laptop is working like a charm.  So far.  The first guy basically abandoned me without telling me anything he had done.  He just rebooted my system and when I got back online, “Lucky_511871″ was long gone so I had to get back in the queue and start the process all over again.

I have a lot of software I want to load in the next few days so we’ll see how that goes.

blarg-blog

Just a quick update, mainly for myself.

Work has started out pretty good this week. I’ve added $21 in weekly stops already. Another $1.1k in yearly revenue. Closing in on $8.5k in just over a week. Now if I could just get my catalog a little bit higher.

Ah, the snow has melted. Flooding concerns are rising with the water.

Updatage

Well, I’m currently under a level 3 snow emergency. No travel allowed, period. We’ve gotten a mini-blizzard in the last 24 hours with 8+” in snow. Last night there was thunder and lightening for about 2 hours while we got freezing rain. One of the oddest things I’ve ever seen, to be honest. Blowing and drifting will be a serious concern as the night wears on.

I had an amazing week at work this week. I had close to 1k in direct sales and close to $150 in growth, which translates into about $7800 in yearly revenue. A banner week, no doubt.

I was definitely losing interest/motivation the past month but I woke up Monday resolved to get out of my funk and I think I managed to do just that.