Change of Plans

I had planned to post an update on the house and other random thoughts that are running through my mind. However, a call I received late this afternoon has me changing things up.

I thought I was receiving a call from my good friend Joe, because that's what the caller ID on my phone said. However, it wasn't Joe. It was his wife Laura.

She was calling to let me know that Joe was in a bad car accident Friday night. He's okay, relatively speaking. He broke a vertebrae, but apparently it's the one to break if you break your neck. He also has a bruise on his spine, which has the doctors concerned.

I don't remember too many of the details of her call. He can't really talk and he will be wearing a neck brace for awhile. I'm not sure how soon he'll be released from the hospital.

She also mentioned that he had been drinking. I don't know any of the details about the accident at all, but that surprised me. Joe's a pretty responsible guy and I don't ever recall him drinking and driving in all the years I've known him. That doesn't mean he hasn't, he just hasn't done it while I've been around.

I hope that if he was drunk, that it is the last time he makes that decision. I love the man like a brother and will be by his side no matter what. I will do whatever I can to make sure that he takes whatever steps necessary to make sure something like this never happens again.

In the meantime, I'll be thinking of Joe and saying some prayers. Hang in there pal...

21 Years Ago Tonight...

Apparently, there's a baseball game being played in Boston tonight. Gee, I never would've known if it wasn't for being surrounded by Red Sox fans.

Anyway, there was a World Series game being played in Flushing 21 years ago this evening. This game (along with Tate George's shot against Clemson in 1990) is the seminal sports moment of my life. It is the genesis for this blog.

As I type this, I'm watching the 10th inning of said game. It's currently the top of the 10th & Dave Henderson just hit a leadoff homerun to give the Sox a 4-3 lead. They just cut to the scene of Roger Clemens celebrating in the Red Sox bullpen, complete with his act of vandalism.

Someday, I'll have a page dedicated to this game. Until then, there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said.

I'd just like to state again for the record that if there's someone to be labeled a goat for this game, it's Rich Gedman, who should've caught Bob Stanley's "wild pitch".

Aside from that, I credit the Mets, especially Gary Carter, Kevin Mitchell, Ray Knight & Mookie Wilson, for not giving up, even when the end looked inevitable.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words...if that is so, you've just seen a million words but more importantly the Mets are alive and well and will be playing the 7th game tomorrow night." - Vin Scully

Interesting XM Ratings

Arbitron recently released their Spring 2007 rankings for XM & Sirius. Since I don't have Sirius, I have nothing to say about their numbers. (For the record, XM had a cumulative audience (cume) of 10.33 million listeners compared to 6.6 million for Sirius. The Howard Stern channel on Sirius was the most listened to channel on both services, with a cume of 1.22 million listeners. XM's 20 on 20 was second, with a cume of 1.05 million listeners.)

I thought it would be interesting to list some rankings & share which channels I frequent.

Top 10

• 20 on 20 (1,055,300)
• Flight 26 (713,700)
• 70s on 7 (654,100)
• 80s on 8 (648,900)
• 60s on 6 (619,600)
• Top Tracks (607,600)
• Highway 16 (554,100)
• The Blend (548,000)
• The Heart (489,200)
• Fox News (485,400)

Of those ten, I listen to Flight 26 the most, 80s next, then Top Tracks. I'll tune in to the 70s and 20 on 20 and occasionally The Blend. (all are presets, then again, there are 30) I never listen to The Heart and I have never even thought of tuning in to Highway 16 or Fox News. The 60s is also a preset but I very rarely even check it out. I LOVE listening to the vintage American Top 40 Countdowns on the 70s & 80s. They fly by without those pesky commercials.

Top 5 Traffic Channels

• Los Angeles (16,300)
• Washington DC (13,700)
• New York (12,500)
• Philadelphia (7,900)
• Dallas/FW (5,700)

I know Brian isn't surprised DC is second only to LA.

My Favorites

• Boneyard (223,000) (35th)
• 90s on 9 (366,000) (17th)
• Lucy (388,000) (15th)
  
• Flight 26 (713,700) (2nd)
• The Rhyme (80,400) (69th)
• Cinemagic (50,600) (85th)
• ESPN Radio (262,000) (26th)
• MLB Homeplate (81,500) (68th)
• XM Comedy (422,200) (12th)

I'm not surprised by the Boneyard being so low on the list. It's very specific in content and varied in the years covered, different types of metal/rock, etc. I'm most disappointed in Cinemagic being so low. That is such a unique, fun channel and I find myself listening a lot at work. I suppose part of the problem with Cinemagic is if the current movie is one you're not interested in, you have to wait 20 minutes or so for a new one to come up. By that time, you'll most likely have found something else to listen to. I'm glad Lucy & the 90s are high on the list. Two channels I thought were underrated.

(rankings via post from Orbitcast)

Still Drying Off

Last night, I was lucky enough to work the chains along with Mike for our local high school football team. We do it every home game, pocket a bit of money and enjoy a little football up-close.

For those of you in the Northeast, you remember last evening's weather. It poured. The wind howled. It was blast. Poor P.J. had to work in it. I loved it.

It wasn't too bad until the kickoff. Then the skies opened. The first half was played almost entirely in the downpour. The second half started off fairly dry, but the last five minutes of the game was easily the worst. It didn't matter to me. I was soaked as soon as the game started, so after that, it didn't really matter how much it rained. BTW, the home team won.

I would've loved to have been playing. I played in two games with weather like that in my brief career, both blowout losses. The first one was a home game versus Naugatuck, which we lost 50-something to zero. It was our second game of the year & I saw the field as a free safety for the first time in mop-up duty. I picked off a pass & became the starting free safety the rest of the way.

The second game in that weather was at Ansonia, a traditional Connecticut HS football power. By that point in the season, I was starting on offense, defense & special teams. Once again, we lost 50-something to nothing.

Perhaps I should amend my statement to say I would've loved to be playing in that weather as long as my team wasn't being trounced.

One other thought that crossed my mind working the game last night. I was figuring out when the kids playing were born & sure enough, if they are 17, they were born while I was playing football or even after that. It amazes me how fast time has flown, especially since high school ended.

Whither The Squirrels?

I feed birds. I enjoy having different birds around and the cats greatly enjoy watching them fly from trees to the feeders and back.

We have a regular feeder and a suet feeder outside of a living room window. I also have a small feeder hanging from a tree near the driveway.

In addition to the bird feeders, I have a squirrel feeder. It is attached to a tree in the backyard, right at the edge of the yard and woods. It holds four ears of corn & spins. Back when I lived in the house years ago, the squirrels loved it and I would replace the corn constantly, almost on a daily basis. This feeder is primarily entertainment for me.

Well over a week ago, I filled up that squirrel feeder and I also installed another one. This is similar to the suet feeder, only larger and instead of suet, it's a giant corn cake.

The birds seem to enjoy the corn cake (I think there are sunflower seeds in it) but the other squirrel feeder hasn't been touched. I understand it may take some time for them to re-discover the feeder, but I haven't seen one squirrel in the yard.

Mary said she saw one in the yard last week, but not since. I'm wondering if something is keeping them away. There is a neighborhood cat, Daphne, who patrols the yard, but I doubt she's chasing squirrels.

However, this past spring, a fisher cat was spotted in the woods behind the house, eating a small animal. It looked like a squirrel, but I couldn't be certain. Perhaps the squirrels took a hint and decided to vacate the area?

Stay tuned...

This Is A Test

Just trying to see if I can post to the blog via email.

Seeing as Blogger  & Twitter are two of the sites blocked here at work, this will be a way for me to post updates if anything interesting were too happen while sitting at my desk.

It's A Miracle

38 years ago today, Jerry Koosman got future Mets manager Davey Johnson to fly out to Ron Swoboda, completing the storybook year of the Miracle Mets.

I was still four years away from being born, but I love reading about that team & all the early Mets teams. Hopefully there's some interesting items in the Hall of Fame I'll be able to check out when I get up there in December.

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In other news, here is a shot of Payton, her soccer team & handsome coach.

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The "renovations" on the house are continuing. I still feel like we're camping. The first project we're doing is redoing my computer/TV room. We ripped out the carpet & Mary has painted the ceilings. Once the primer & paint is up and I scrub off the old paint off of the hardwoods, I'll be able to set everything up in there, including this computer. I haven't touched my 360 in almost two weeks!

I do have lots of pictures to share, but first I'll need to locate my memory card reader so I can take them off of the camera. The real interesting shots will be of the driveway/patio project, which started yesterday and is progressing nicely.

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I should have plenty of time to enjoy my new setup during the first week of November. I will be having my wisdom teeth ripped from my mouth. I am not looking forward to this procedure as I have been hearing horror stories about this my entire life. Ugh. Hopefully I'll get to enjoy lots of ice cream.

Bandito!

This is Bandit. He loves water. The only time I've ever seen this cat drink water is from a running bath faucet. He's a piece of work.

In other news, tomorrow we'll begin the first phase of fixing up the house. We'll begin painting my computer/tv/guest room and hopefully I'll be able to hook all my stuff up. (Surround sound, Xbox, wireless network, etc.)

We'll also start to peel the wallpaper off of the master bedroom walls & paint some of the hallways. I'll also continue to clean out the basement. (HUGE project) The driveway paving project is set to begin Monday.

I will be sharing before & after photos of all projects.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

I'm Back!

Yes, the DSL is running. Finally.

There's too much for me to do around here to do a large post, but I do want to respond to P.J.'s new header over at A L'il HooHaa, which proclaims "At least they (Phillies) ain't the Mets".

I'll agree 100% with that little nugget. The Phillies have been playing baseball for a loooooong time. They've been the Phillies from 1890 - 1942 and 1945 - 2007. (They were also the Philadelphia Blue Jays in 1943 & 1944 & the Quakers from 1883-1889.)

Someone else will have to do the math for me to figure out how many years they've been around. In all those years, they've amassed a winning percentage of 0.469, while winning ONE world championship.

The Mets on the other hand have been around only a fraction the time of the Phillies and have a winning percentage of 0.478 and have won TWO world championships. Plural.

Yes, at least they aren't the Phillies. :)

Moving Update

So the U-Haul got picked up this morning and by 6:30 PM, it was fully loaded with all pieces of furniture and any other large items. It was a fairly easy process.

The rest of the stuff that has to go is all small & can be boxed up. That, the big TV & the cats & goldfish. We have until Sunday to get all that out.

Nothing like sleeping on couch cushions on the floor! Good times!

Hopefully fall weather will show up soon & kick these mid-80's temps out to sea. Yuck.

Funny, I didn't miss being at work today. :)

Moving Time

Well, the time has come. Wednesday was my last day of work until next Wednesday and the focus is now on moving everything out of this apartment.

We pick up the U-Haul tomorrow morning & will be spending most of the day tomorrow and Friday loading it up with the large things (couch, mattress, couch, bookcases) and the odds & ends we haven't been able to move to the storage unit over the past month.

My Xbox 360 is already packed away. :(

Friday morning, the DirecTV installer is supposed to arrive between 8 AM & noon. Yeah, right. Hopefully he/she won't be too late so I can get back and help load the truck.

Saturday morning we unload the U-Haul with most of the big stuff, drop off the sectional at the storage unit & return the truck. The rest of the day & weekend will be spent cleaning, removing wallpaper, painting and slowly bringing boxes from the storage unit to the house. I will be sharing before and after photos here as we progress.

On Monday, we should see the beginning of the driveway paving project, along with a nice square paved area for a basketball court. Sweeeeet.

I probably won't have the computer hooked up again until Saturday sometime, but I should be able to jump online here & there. I'll try & keep my two readers updated via Twitter.

Dark Days

While reading Mike's blog today & his gloating over the Patriots & Red Sox, I was brutally reminded about how horrible things are for me sports-wise right now.

Nothing more needs to be said regarding the Mets collapse. The Dolphins are currently the second worst team in the NFL according to ESPN's NFL Insiders. Compounding those two horrific scenarios is the fact that I'm surrounded by Patriots & Red Sox fans, which is simply nauseating. Sprinkle in the occasional Yankees fan, along with my friends the Phillies fans, who by the way, get to enjoy the postseason at the Mets fans expense, and life is simply brutal.

If you are one of my few readers (I lost another one, thanks Eric) who happens to be a Red Sox fan, I'd like to remind you that you are considered the most obnoxious fans around. Most Patriots fans believe football was invented with the Tuck Rule and couldn't tell John Hannah from Hannah Storm.

There are a couple of silver linings in this world of misery. The UConn football team is 5-0 and is currently "receiving votes"! However, nothing can top the fact that Notre Dame is horrible. (Sorry P.J. It's not personal!) Charlie Weis is some offensive genius! Their ineptitude is the welcome result of bad karma for how Tyrone Willingham was treated. Go Service Academies! This is your year!