Masters of Gilligan

Nothing From Nutting Leaves Nothing

Well, friends, another exciting season of Bucco baseball is upon us.  Try to contain your excitement.

Will this be the year that the stars align, and the Pirates end their 15-season losing streak?  Will Nate McClouth, Zach Duke and Jose Bautista have the breakout years we've all been waiting for?  Will this young Bucco team compete for a playoff spot?  Will the Richie Zisk bobblehead feature one of the greatest porn-staches in baseball history?

No, no, hell no, and I certainly hope so.

You read it here first -- the 2008 Battlin' Buccos will go 57-105.  Jason Bay, Jack Wilson and Xavier Nady will all be happily ensconced on teams whose ownerships actually give a whit about winning by mid-June.

And there will be a chilly, rainy Tuesday night game in September where the actual (not announced) attendance will be in the high triple digits.

This franchise is a disgrace.  I humbly submit that we give up all pretenses and embrace loserdom, like the Cubs.  Re-name Mazeroski Way as "Khalifa Court," replace the statues of Wagner, Stargell and Clemente with bronzed likenesses of Manny Sarmiento, Charlie Sands and Derek Bell and replace the out-of-town scoreboard with a countdown to Steelers training camp.

UPDATE:

You're not going to find a better preview of the upcoming Bucco fiasco than this right 'chere, from the guy who writes the excellent Mondesi's House blog.

And the Mother of the Year Award Goes To........

As you faithful readers already know, Bob travels twice a year for the MRS conferences. Obviously since he is gone, that leaves just me and the kids in the house for a week. Normally the week is exhausting but overall uneventful.  Not so for this past Saturday. 

Let me give you an idea of how Saturday played out. The kiddies woke up early on Saturday morning, and I had activities planned for them to keep them busy all day.  After lunch I announced that since we were going to see “Horton Hears A Who” at the movies they had to take a nap before we went. Nothing is worse than whiny kids at the movies.  So I got them into their beds and eventually they got quiet. Since all was quiet I decided to take a nap as well.  I must have fallen asleep with minutes of my head hitting the pillow as it is the only way that I can account for what happened over the next hour or so.

You see, dear readers, I had ASS-U-ME-D that the kids had fallen asleep.  They are rarely quiet unless they are asleep so you can see why the assumption was made in the first place. So somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 they decided that they did not want to nap, proceeded to get out of their beds and wreak minor havoc on the house.  All while Mommy was fast asleep.  I want to preface the following account with the fact that I feel completely guilty about having them playing in the house with no adult supervision, but on the other hand it proves to me that they are quite ingenious and more self-sufficient than we originally thought.  Thank goodness we still have locks on the drawers and most of the cabinet doors.

When I woke up, I checked their beds and saw that neither of them were there. This was the first “oh shit” moment.  The house was quiet (second “oh shit” moment). As I went to the steps to go downstairs, I could see that they had played in Adam’s bed and his art box because things were strewn about all over his room. I went downstairs to find them watching television in the den. 

I proceeded to go into the kitchen and found the new box of cereal opened in the way you would expect a 5 year old to open it. The bag inside had been cut with kiddie scissors and there was some cereal missing. I found the missing cereal in a pile in the sink together with chocolate milk.  All of the napkins were missing and an empty bottle of chocolate milk was sitting on the kitchen table. Based on my conversation with Adam, they did not want to take a nap or have quiet time so they played in their rooms.  Then they decided to go downstairs where they opened the cereal box, somehow got a bowl and poured the chocolate milk on it, spilling some on the floor which was actually cleaned up with the napkins.  They decided they didn’t want the cereal (not that I would want Fiber One and chocolate milk together) and dumped it in the sink.  There were some other things out of place but I decided that he had been interrogated enough for one day.

Note to self - next time you decide to take a nap, double check that the kids are actually sleeping.

Read Up, Poindexter

My guess is that these are of interest to no one -- but if you get a second, please take a look at a couple of work-related blogs with which I'm involved:

MRS Meetings Blog

Harnessing Materials for Energy

I've been in San Francisco since Friday, and will be here for a few more days.  Great trip so far.  Lovely, spring-like weather.  At the moment, though, I'm stuck inside a convention center with 4,000 research scientists. 

In general, if you put me in a room with around 4,000 random people, I like to think that intelligence-wise I'd fit right in around the middle.

But at the moment, I'm in a building with 4,000 people and I guarantee you -- GUARANTEE -- that I am the dumbest guy in the room.  And that's humbling yet also kind of liberating in a way.  As the dumbest guy in the room, people's expectations of me are low.  The way I like them. 

Hi, Neighbor

Bob says:

Oh, you'd better believe I'm wearing my Mr. Rogers sweater today.

I know I've flogged this horse any number of times in the past, so I won't belabour you with my admiration for the man.  I will, though, ask you to take a look at this if you're one of those who remember Fred Rogers as nothing more than a feel-good, namby-pamby wimp. 

As much as I liked him as a kid, I appreciate him even more as an adult and a parent.  Silly as it may seem, the phrase "What would Mr. Rogers do?" runs through my head every time the stress of parenting gets a bit excessive.  Try it.  I'll bet that 9 times out of 10, your inner Mr. Rogers will come back with the right answer, too.

So happy birthday, Mr. Rogers.

Current Mod Period

Joe says:

My family and I are quite strange in our music listening and we tend to have extended periods of interest in one particular band or group or songster at a given time.  For a particularly long obsessive period of time. I feel like we are about to enter, or have already entered, an intense new musical period.

"How long do you think this one will last?" I ask Rebecca.  And she says, "Not very, one hopes."

What will happen is this, and we must face the truth that it is usually a madness that afflicts the male members of the household: we listen to a record and we move the music from the car to the stereo to the portable to the iPod and we play it over and over on long trips.  And short hops. Then we agree to dig like a badger deep into the recording artist's catalog and summon up the entire canon.  This leads to wall to wall playing in the car, at mealtimes, while writing, while studying, while jogging, before sleep.  The music becomes the soundtrack of the Kelly life.

We've been through Beatles.  That took years (which followed on my own personal significant portions of decades).  The Beatles obsession segued to Lennon and Harrison periods. We've done it with The Who.  Elvis Costello got the treatment awhile back. The Band, too.  Rebecca recalls the late '80s as synonymous with my Dylan period.  Counting Crows and their relatively short catalog represents a short, distinct period for the boys.  Springsteen recently had big-time airplay.  There've been others.

But a new wave is coming.  I've felt it coming.  And it's not like we haven't had mini-periods of the group before.  Rebecca thought we already had a period, but we reminded her that those were just particular hits collections and one album.  Played over and over and over again.

What I'm talking about is a full-bore go out and get every song they ever made kind of obsession.  And I felt it when we saw Darjeeling Limited for the second time.  And you now know where I am going with this one, as we enter...

period.

Wes Anderson has lured us back to The Kinks' fantastic record Lola vs. Powerman with three cuts off that album in the movie: Strangers, This Time Tomorrow, and Powerman.  I'm not certain how I missed this record all these years!  The Kinks were never a big thing for me aside from their early, early hits and minor hits.  Two of my all-time favorites from their early period have always been Where Have All the Good Times Gone and Like Everybody Else.  There was that late '70s revival with Low Budget that was really popular in high school art class.  But I never really experienced their late '60s to early '70s period until fairly recently.  We got Village Green Preservation Society, and Arthur, and now Lola, and we are hooked on the hooks, the lyrics, the guitars, the inventive story-telling.

The thing I think I like most about The Kinks is the interplay of Ray Davies' and brother Dave Davies' voices, Dave taking that higher register that complements Ray's gruff voice so well.  You know, like when they sing: "Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand why she walks like a woman and talks like a man."  Dave wrote the great song Strangers with the beautiful phrase: "Strangers on this road we are on.  But we are not two we are one," and it's hard not to think of the two brothers in that song.  Ray is the more dominant one, for sure.  But Dave was really, really important to the group, too.

There's talk of a reunion tour this year, don't know how true that is because the brothers apparently dislike each other with great passion, and there's bad blood all around the original band mates.  Ray seems to be doing his own thing anyway.  As a dad of two very close brothers who are separated by three years but share so much of their lives together I hope things will never go sour between them and they will always, always be close.  Competition breaks many brothers apart.  But I think they both know how truly we love and worship them both totally and equally and that's not a hard thing to do.  They are both similar, yet great in their own ways.

Talking about brothers, particularly rock and roll brothers, have there been any two brothers (or sisters) in a band greater or more significant in rock history than the Davies brothers?  (Two siblings, not three or more, like Gibbs, Isleys, Jacksons, or, um, Hansons. And actual brothers, not simply brothers of Doobie or brothers that are Righteous.)

Fogerty brothers maybe?  Allman brothers.  Gallagher brothers.  Wilson sisters. Winwood brothers. Knopflers.  Mothersbaughs.  Crenshaws.  I must be forgetting a bunch. 

But were any better than the Davies? 

Where Do You Know Senator Kennedy From?

Joe says:

I love living in Washington, DC.  Where else can you take your kid to his youth basketball playoff game played in a small, local boys and girls club gym on a Saturday afternoon in late winter and see Ted Kennedy?

We were standing in the gym doorway, my younger son and I, waiting for his game to begin, watching the finish of a younger division championship game, when I saw the Senator.  Truth be told it's really not unusual to run into any Senator, but we see Senator Kennedy out and about quite often.  At the movies, or picking up pizza, or getting Vietnamese food, anyplace around the neighborhood. 

He and I share a bit in common.  Most noticeably we share very large Irish heads.  He sat in front of us while we were watching Master and Commander in a theater back in 2003 and we had to move across the aisle because his head was so distractingly large and Kennedy-esque.  That's the reason why I grab the last row at picture shows.  Who wants a pumpkin head blocking their view when they've paid 10 bucks to see the screen?

I met him a few times in professional life when I was working on health care legislation and frequently met with his Senate staff, but he wouldn't know me.  I usually just nod and smile and say hi.  He usually does an obvious double-take when he sees me, though.  Do I remind him of a Kennedy?  My initials are in fact JFK.

It's probably just the similarly sized head.

But that's not the story I want to tell, running into Senator Kennedy.  I want to tell you about how embarrassingly stupid I can be, and it relates to Senator Kennedy.

My son has a teammate that he has known since they both were five years old.  They know each other not from school but through sports teams, and his family lives nearby.  The boys played baseball together for a couple of years on a team that I coached.  And they have played against each other in soccer games since then.  His parents are really nice and we've gotten to know them and they've helped us out by giving rides to games and practices when we've had schedule conflicts.  It was a real pleasure to connect back up with them this year when our boys joined the same basketball team, a kind of ad hoc, strung together team of players who lost all of their games this season against teams of boys who have been playing together for years.

Not only are the boy's parents truly devoted to sports, the boy's grandfather has always been there cheering his grandson on. Two grandsons, in fact.  They also have an older boy, just like us.  The grandfather and I have chatted with each other for years, and he's just the kindest and most incredibly interested gentleman you'd want to meet.  He is always there to catch the games, often arriving early, whether it's early morning soccer or basketball.  A tall man in his '80s, you can tell he loves sports and still enjoys golfing.  It's really remarkable and a total joy to see somebody who is so devoted to his grandkids' lives.  We often sat together this past basketball season, as we have in the past, and talked about, well, anything going on with our guys.  He takes a special interest in my boy's baseball playing, which he knows is really our singular sports focus.

I noticed that the grandfather was chatting with Senator Kennedy between games, and they looked like they knew each other well.  So I went over and said these dumb words to the man that I have known and chatted with at ball games for the last seven years:

"So where do you know Senator Kennedy from?"

And he answered:

"We served in the Senate together."

Gulp.

I consider myself a student of American politics, but I had no idea that the man I've been chatting with at games for years was a former U.S. Senator.  I felt like a rube who just violated some cardinal rule of living in Washington.

That's okay, he said.  It was a long time ago.  His daughter-in-law said that's okay.  Maine isn't one of the more prominent states.

But that's the last time I'm going to ask somebody how they know so and so.  From now on I'm just going to assume that everybody I meet might've been a Senator.

Come to think of it, that's another thing I love about living in Washington, DC.

Dirty Minded Googling

Joe says:

We just bought a house and like a lot of city houses the stairs are too narrow and winding to move a big bed.  It's happened to us before, so we aren't surprised or taken aback by the dilemma.  We've ordered the split queen box springs before.  But this house has particularly small, narrow stairs leading up to the master bedroom.  So small and narrow that I think we won't be able to get our nice firm comfortable fairly new queen coil spring mattress up the stairs.

So I'm looking for solutions.  Everything from memory foam to latex mattresses that might be more flexible and bendable, to split twin XL mattresses that we can somehow form together to make a normal size bed for two.  Lindsey Wagner's weary suggestions of dual adjustable hospital beds, as seen on TV, have even crossed my mind.

I went looking on the Internet for possible solutions.  And I typed these words into the (incredibly filthy-minded) Google:

getting bed up narrow stairs

What do I get in the form of a response from the Google?

"Do you mean getting boned up narrow stairs?"

What?  NO.  I don't mean that.  I don't mean that at all.  I'm not interested in that.  Honestly.

Why is the Google assuming that I am thinking dirty thoughts even when I am not?

Rabbit Test

You know what feature of Mary Worth's personality is even better than her never-ending quest to be nicely helpful, or helpfully nice?

It's her humility.

Yes, Mare, you are indeed a saint.

Let's take a trip back in memory lane and recall Anna's reaction to those few words that nudged them in the right direction towards parenthood:

Now then, let's take a look at the happy couple interacting with their offspring.  Oh look, Dr. Good is showing the baby his....GAAAAH!

Look honey!  I've had Tim Conway shrunken and fitted into a tiny rabbit costume.  Isn't that DARLING?

I'm pretty sure we've seen Dr. Good's magic rabbit act before.  Let me check the archives...

Oh.  Yeah.



   

Ya Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

Today we welcome the first installment of a new series:  "What Really Grinds My Gears".

You know what really grinds my gears?  Dental hygienists that just WON'T SHUT UP.

I have one particular ability that serves me well in any number of situations, and it's this -- the ability to completely zone out in unpleasant situations.

For example, in the dentist's chair, I can quite easily drift off into a state of blissful unawareness.  Provided, that is, if the person who's poking and prodding around in MY mouth will kindly keep her own closed for a few moments.

Dear hygienist -- you are a lovely woman.  Really.  And you do a fine job of scraping away my tooth goop.  But please, I beg of you -- keep your information about Obama's trade policies, your hygienist convention in Texas, and the insect infestation in your backyard to yourself. 

Thank you.

This has been the final installment of "What Really Grinds My Gears."

Double Yoi

"Who was that lunatic you have on your broadcasts?"

I'll bet I heard that phrase -- or some variation of it -- at least a dozen times in my life.  It was the official motto of outsiders after their very first experience with the voice of Myron Cope on Steelers broadcasts.

And he WAS a lunatic.  But by God, he was our lunatic, and his over-the-top lunacy fit the team like the hard-nosed, hard-hitting team fit the city. 

Myron's life and passing have been captured so well by others that I was going to forego any mention of it here. (In particular, check out the Post-Gazette coverage as well as Jason Togyer's excellent piece on Tube City Almanac.  Better yet, watch this piece from Channel 4.)

I will share one brief anecdote.  In 1995, I was a part-time producer (which is a fancy way of saying "guy who answered the phones and played the commercials) at then WTAE-Radio.  Myron did his last talk show that April, and signed off with a few words about his late wife, who I believe had passed away only a few months before.

Cope continued to do the Steeler broadcasts -- and in the Fall of '95, I was frequently on the board for the games.  This particular Sunday, I was to produce the post-game show, and I got the first few callers lined up.  (One of Myron's quirks was that he never wanted you to get the names of the callers, or preview their subject matter -- just line 'em up, and he'd punch 'em up with a "how do, you're next in the store...")

The very first caller asked Myron if he remembered the last thing he said on his final talk show.  Cope choked up for a split second -- I may have been the only person in Pittsburgh sober enough to catch it -- and then slowly said, "Yes, I sure do."

The caller then said something to the effect of "The last thing you said was how the Steelers needed to throw to the tight end more" (or something to that effect.)  It took Myron aback, because clearly he was thinking about his comments about his wife -- but about two seconds later, that Cope persona was back. 

He was awesome.

-----
Speaking of awesome, let's also note the passing of Jeff Healey.  You probably remember him as the guy who had a big hit with a cover of John Hiatt's "Angel Eyes." 

Enjoy his version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."  (Ignore, if you can, the mullet.)