World Champs!

So the White Sox won the World Series tonight. After an 88 year drought they won the big one. Why is it that although their drought was two years longer than the one the Redsox ended last season, no one seems to care so much? I think the t.v. ratings for this World Series were some of the lowest in recent memory. It's really too bad because although the Astros didn't win a game, each game was very close and a nail biter to the very end. All that aside though ... here is what I really want some feedback on. The polls are open. Which Astro player choked the most in the post season? Where the freak was Morgan Ensberg this post season? That guy was great all year and then he just forgets to show up when the playoffs come around. Phil Garner's comment before tonight's game was "maybe Ensberg will run into one." Was it Ausmus who seemed to be either striking out every time I looked up or popping up to shallow center when he should have been taking the pitch so the runner on first could easily steal second and put himself in scoring position. Willie Taveras who stole 34 bases this season and yet didn't have the balls to take one the entire post season? You know the green light was on numerous times in the past two games if the opportunity was there. Was it a compilation of every Astros player who picked up a bat? That's a possibility. When it was crunch time they all sucked at the plate. Ezekiel Astacio for coming out of the pen and getting blown up lastnight in game 3? By the way, what the crap is on that guy's face? Is it Phil Garner for making the decision to bring in Astacio who is obviously not as accomplished of a pitcher as the rest of the bullpen? I realize that was a tough one because there was only two guys left in the pen and neither were that reliable. But if that's the case do you take your chances on letting Qualls go another inning. Who knows? Personally I think it would be hard to choke in a noticeable enough way to pull away from the pack with some much competition here but I've got to hand it to Brad Lidge. He really did a number out there this post season. He couldn't just concentrate on hitting his spots and making the pitches during game 5 of the NLCS. He had to get too excited and just fire it up there. I hate to tell you Brad, but if you do that with Albert Pujols at the plate he's going to launch one off the glass my friend. Man, it's a good thing the roof was closed. That ball would have killed someone in Katy. I think it was a bad decision to not let Lidge close out game 6 just to get his confidence back. It was a perfect situation that was almost fool proof, but Garner kept him on the bench. I guess he would let him get his confidence back in a much tighter situation with no room for error. Say like bottom of the ninth, tied game pitching to a guy who didn't hit a home run the entire regular season. Too bad that one got deposited about 5 rows up and sent the Astros back to Houston down 2-0. Lidge only gave up 5 homers the entire regular season. And now he had given up 2 in the postseason already. And then tonight they bring him into a game tied 0-0. What does he do? Nothing big ... he just allowed an rbi single. Too bad that was all the White Sox needed to win the game. The Astros rallied to tie game 3 in the eighth inning and then didn't score a single run the next 15 innings. How is that possible? The White Sox pitchers are good, but they aren't that good. So my choke award goes to Lidge but he can feel free to share it with anyone in the clubhouse he likes. Everyone deserves to hoist that trophy over their head for at least a few minutes.

So congratulations to the White Sox. I think it's great to see a team like that win it after being away for so long. Whether people watched or not I think it's great for baseball to have a team with this much history finally win the series. Now that the attention is finally back on the White Sox I think they should make a campaign to have "Shoeless" Joe Jackson reinstated into baseball and inducted into the Hall of Fame. I'll save that arguement for another day though.

Sometimes you've got to go where everybody knows your name

Second half of the trip consisted of a stop in Kennebuckport, Maine for a great lunch at the marina/shipyard. This is the town where George and Barbara Bush have a place. It is unbelievable. It sits right on the water out on a rocky point. It has water on three sides crashing on the rocks below. Very cool place.

So for the evening we did Boston on the go. After checking in at the hotel and watching the end of the Notre Dame/USC game we hopped in a cab and took off for Cheers. The outside is the only thing that was actually used on the show. The majority of the shots were on a soundstage in Hollywood and although it was a pretty touristy thing to do it was still fun to walk down the stairs to the basement bar. We had a few drinks and then headed to Legal Seafood for dinner. If you're ever in this area I highly recommend this place. It came recommended to us and did not let us down. The great thing about being in a city like Boston as opposed to the suburbs of Dallas is that things are open late into the night. We sat down to dinner at 10:30 p.m. that night and didn't think twice about it. I love that. There's something really cool about not getting up from the dinner table until almost midnight. Went to a club to play pool after dinner and then finally to bed for a few hours before catching a very early flight. All in all a great trip. It was my first time to New England and I'm definitely sold. We had a good mix of the fast paced city and the easy going backroads and country towns. If you get a chance to go there definitely take advantage.

I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger ...

Well, finally I did something exciting enough to write about. Following is a rundown of my time in New England. Depending on how specific I end up being this may just be a first half. We'll see. I also apologize for any overlap with the last post.

Last Wednesday night I slept from 2:30 a.m. until 3:30 a.m. I was obviously not feeling great when my friend Matt pulled up at 4:00 a.m. to pick me up. I told him how little sleep I got and he responded with, "well, that's one more hour than I got." We were not off to a good start but luckily we were looking at a 3 and a half hour plane ride to catch up. New Balance is headquartered in Boston so after we got a rental car we headed out to the New Balance outlet. As I'm a little low on money these days I planned to buy nothing but couldn't pass up a perfectly good pair of shoes for $25. I think Matt and his parents (who were along for part of the trip) cleaned out the rest of the store. They have grandkids to buy for so they went crazy. How they got all 14 pair in a bag, on the plane, and back to Texas is a mystery to me. From there we took the scenic/lost tour of Boston to Jillian's to eat. This place is great. It has a restaurant on the first floor, pool tables and an arcade on the second floor and a bowling alley on the third. It was vacation and we were having a late lunch upstairs overlooking Fenway Park so beers were in order. As a rule I don't drink alcohol until the sun has set except for a few special occasions. I'm sure the drive from Boston to Freeport, ME was great. However, I was still trying to catch up on some sleep so I didn't see much of it. I think I've already written about the rest of the evening so I'll move on. I will however say that dinner that night at Jamison's Tavern in Freeport was quite possibly the best meal I've had in my entire life. No lie.

The next day we headed out to the Presumpscot River to go fly fishing. On a side note, the last time I used my waders I apparently had a small leak because when I took them off both legs were soaked in ice cold water. So before leaving for this trip I filled the waders up with water to see if they leaked anywhere. Let me tell you, enough water to fill 2/3 of a full grown man is extremely heavy. I found no leak so I figured I would give them a go. I wasn't in the water a half hour when I started to feel the water seeping in on the top of my left foot. The 50 degree water was somewhat less than comfortable but what are you going to do. I fished on ... with no luck I might add ... and after several hours on the river we called it a day and I was able to determine the damage. I found that apparently both legs leaked as I rung out socks and pants legs in the parking area. So that night I was at L.L. Bean again talking to the fishing guys about stragegy, equipment, etc. and asked if they could fix them. I was told to bring them in and ask for a new pair because they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. I did so the next morning and walked out with a brand new pair. I couldn't believe it. I think this is a wonderful way to do business and creates long term rapport with customers that leads to overall long term success of the company. I didn't know anyone still had the balls to do business this way. So L.L. Bean is now one of my top 5 favorite companies and will continue to have my business for years to come. The funny thing is the next day fishing I was really excited about being able to stay dry all day until this happened ... first of all it was raining pretty hard so I wasn't completely dry but what I'm going to tell you about next certainly did not help. I was standing about thigh deep in the river casting my rod. I took a step with my left foot and did not come down on solid footing. In an effort to catch myself I naturally shifted my left foot in a position to steady my body and keep it from falling over. Seems like a logical course of action except there happened to be a large submerged boulder right behind me that I was unaware of. So when I tried to step back with my left foot it was blocked and I fell onto the rock in a seated position with water up to my waist. This was fine except the water was flowing swiftly and began to push me backwards. So my next natural move was to catch myself with my left hand. Unfortunately I was out of boulder and it was quite a drop off the back. My entire are went into the water and the current then flipped me over the back of the rock. The only things that didn't go underwater were my head and right arm. You see where I'm going with this? The top of my waders was an area that did make the trip underwater. I only took on about a half gallon but man that stuff was cold as it went all the way down to my feet. My left sleeve was also soaked and not so warm in the cold rain. I had enough and got my butt to the car. By the way, it's not so easy to change every piece of clothing in a muddy parking area while it's pouring rain. Try it, you'll see.

So that's the end of part one. If you're not into the play by play just say so and I'll spare you. If not, I'll post about the Kennebuckport and Boston portions of the trip soon. I think I'll have some pictures in the next few days. I didn't take very many but I think the few I got will be worth showing. We'll see. Also, I'll have some big news in the days to come to stay tuned. Until then ...

A Great Day

Today did not start well. I had a 6:30 flight from DFW which meant I had to leave the house at 4:15. I slept for a grand total of one hour. That's right, 60 minutes. After a bumpy flight with an obnoxious old man flight attendant we finally arrived in Boston around 11:00. Then the fun began. I'm here with my friend Matt and we wondered around downtown Boston for several hours before finally finding out way to Jillian's for lunch. For those of you not familiar, last year when the Redsox were playing playoff games on the road and they would show shots of Boston fans watching the game from a bar near Fenway ... this was the place. So lunch overlooking Fenway, then we headed out for Maine. Freeport, Maine is a quaint and cozy little town with a lot of great stuff. L.L. Bean headquarters is here so we spent some time at the fly fishing shop and then had a great meal at a local tavern. It was one of those meals where it takes a long time to get your food but you never notice because you're too busy drinking local microbrews and shooting the breeze with locals coming and going. The food was amazing. Drinks were great. And now I'm going to attempt a little more than the one hour of sleep from lastnight. Pictures soon.

THOUGHTS

Did you know there is a national championship for jump roping? I just caught the end of the telecast but apparently you have a team and you do a routine which you are judged on. Personally I would just have them jump until they passed out. Last person standing wins. Anyone else a big fan of the Burger King commercials? When the first one came out where the guy wakes up, rolls over and finds "The King" laying in his bed starring at him I thought I would lose it. How creepy is that guy? I think my favorite is still the one where the king intercepts a pass in that NFL game and highsteps it into the endzone for the touchdown. Honorable mentions to pushing Brooke Burke in the giant swing and the new one where he's helping a steel work put together pieces many stories up on the beams of a new high rise. The king pushes the guy like he's trying to make him fall, then they both burst into laughter over a couple cups of "turbo" coffee. Which brings me to this ... isn't the chief purpose of coffee to wake people up and/or keep them awake? If so, shouldn't all coffee then be as strong as possible? So when Burger King creates "turbo" coffee shouldn't all other coffees follow suit and make themselves "turbo" as well? And then, wouldn't "turbo" coffee just be regular coffee?

Any Laguna Beach fans? Why do I like that show so much? I love how they live in such a fantasy world. The thing is they will always be in that fantasy world because they can all afford (and by they, I mean their parents) to stay there. And why wouldn't they? Tonight was prom at Laguna Beach High. One of the girls apparently dressed a little too sluty ... go figure ... and was accused of looking too "inland Orange County". What the hell does that mean? How big is Orange County that there can be totally different looks for each part of it. I saw this girl at Chick Fil-A in McKinney the other day and she looked so "southern Collin County". She was so out of place and all the high school kids made fun of her.

Who saw the Cowboys make the Eagles their woman yesterday? Where did that come from? And if you were wanting to see a good pimp slapping this past weekend I hope you watched the A&M game Saturday night in Colorado. I think Boulder is an unbelievable town and vow to go there when A&M plays the Buffs up there, which is once every four years. So glad I didn't have the money or time to make that trip this year. The Aggies haven't won there since 1997 when I of course was present. We also haven't beaten Texas period since 1999 and things are not looking up for that to change anytime soon. I hate it when that happens.

Anyone been to Boston? I'm going to be there on Saturday night. I'll only have that one afternoon and night so if anyone has suggestions on what to do/see in such a short period of time let me know. I'm leaving for Maine on Thursday morning. My flight is at 6:37. It takes about 45 minutes to get to the airport. Do you know what time I'm going to have to get up that morning? It will not be pretty my friend.

My sister and brother-in-law got a dog at the beginning of the summer. It's a great dog but for some reason it eats everything it comes across. Plastic, paper, nails, ants, throw up ... you name it, it's probably eaten it. Why do dogs do this? It's so weird to me. I always think that a human would never do anything like that. Then some friends came over this weekend and their daughter ate ashes out of my fireplace. I have a new found respect for the dog and for the child who really seemed to like the soot. I tried it after they left and I really don't see the appeal. To the parents, I hope your child is okay and no worries about the carpet. It cleaned right up. You're welcome anytime as long as you promise to only eat actual food.

Well, I think that's all I'm thinking about for now. A pleasant evening to you all ...