Baseball rant time!

Just thought I would warn everyone.

So, for those who know or care, Manny Ramirez (Man-Ram) was suspended back in May for testing positive for steroids. It is a 50-game suspension without pay (meaning he'll lose 7 million in salary this year); he's set to return to the team on July 3rd.

So, I just learned this past week that he'll begin playing with the Albuquerque Isotopes (LA's triple A team) until he can go back to playing in LA. Also, ESPN is going to feature each and every one of his at-bats. Is it just me or does it seem odd that he can play professional baseball while on suspension from professional baseball? ESPN should be speaking out against this too, not going along with it and profiting off of it.

I was so happy to see an actual professional baseball player get penalized decently, but baseball allowing this is just depressing.

Stranded on the Front Porch

I've been drawing blanks on what to post here lately, and I even talked about that on Saturday afternoon. Who knew that what happened late Saturday night/Sunday morning would provide me just the story to break my draught.

So Kimberly and I were house sitting for a lady that Kimberly knew from a previous job. The lady, who was going on vacation to Florida, lives in the northern part of Durham county. In Durham county, once you drive north of the city there is pretty much a 15 mile stretch of nothing but farmland and really big houses with lots of property. The house is located in a new neighborhood with probably only 20 homes.

We were also watching and feeding her dogs, and Saturday night one of them started to bark pretty crazily at around 2:30. We woke up to investigate and decided to let the dog out of the garage. I stepped out the back door, went through the yard, and opened the back door of the garage to let the dog out. In the meantime Kimberly stepped out the back door also, to tell me something. It was then that we realized we were locked out.

It was 2:30 AM, I'm wearing only shorts and some shoes, Kimberly is wearing only pajamas and no shoes. No keys to the house, no keys to our car, and no phone and a nearly empty neighborhood. After checking all of the doors and windows, and trying to break into the house, we decided the only other option was to go to someone's house. So at now approximately 3 AM we walked through the neighborhood half dressed and rang a doorbell.

Let me tell you, that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, because there is no telling how the person is going to react. Luckily, we got a friendly if not confused elderly couple who was nice enough to let us use their phone. After calling several people and still not being able to get in the house, we called my dad to make the 20 minute drive from his house to pick us up. We made it to their house a little bit after 4 and crashed into the bed.

It was easily the most bizarre night of my life, but one that I'll never forget.

Summer Reading

Just a few of the books that I intend to read this summer.  Being that I'm a baseball fan, it's 99% books about baseball.

The Meaning of Ichiro - Robert Whiting

As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires - Bruce Weber

The Complete Game - Ron Darling

Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit - Matt McCarthy

Summer of '49 - David Halberstam

When Baseball Went to War - Todd Anton

Beyond Belief - Josh Hamilton

The Teammates - David Halberstam

Ernie Harwell - Tom Keegan

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig - Jonathan Eig

Satchel Paige's America - William Price Fox

On the Road - Jack Keroauc

What are you going to be reading this summer?

Random Thoughts

I typically do these random thoughts blogs when I haven't posted in a while.  I just haven't had that much to post about lately, but here goes.

• Just watched a movie called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly about a man that has a stroke and gets locked in his mind.  He only has the ability to blink his left eye, but manages to write a book about his life and experience.  True story, great movie!
• Today is the 55th birthday of the man, the myth, the legend...Jerry Seinfeld.  In honor of him, please watch at least one episode of the show today, you can bet I will.
• A couple of weeks ago Nick Swisher played first base for the Yankees, hit a HR, and then came in to pitch a scoreless inning.  The only other time that an AL pitcher hit a HR and pitched in a game since the DH was Jeff Kunkel of the Texas Rangers in 1989.
• Switchfoot posted this statement on their Twitter last week: "So we haven't been entirely honest when we said we've been recording a new record. The truth is, we actually recorded 4 albums, 80+ songs.  We'll be releasing them one at a time, starting with the first one this aug/sept."  -  Incredible!

Pursuing your dream!

Kimberly and I just finished watching a movie called Man on Wire.  It was about a man by the name of Philippe Petit, who back in 1974 wire walked between the World Trade Center towers for 45 minutes.  It was a pretty incredible feat, but the real accomplishment was how he did it.

He realized that he wanted to do it back in 1968 before ground had even been broken on the towers.  On top of that, he would have to do the walk without the permission of the World Trade Center since there was no way they were going to allow someone to wire walk 1350 feet above Manhattan.  He pretended to be a French journalist, a construction worker, and a electric fence installer all in order to investigate the buildings and set up equipment.  He was even caught by the police one time, but it never deterred him from his dream.  Hearing him talk now 30+ years later you can hear the excitement in his voice.  Clearly this was his passion.

What are you passionate about?  What would you do to pursue your dream and would you let anything stand in your way?

Town Hall for Hope

The economy is bad right now, we all know that, but it doesn't have to be bad for you.  If you're sick and tired of hearing all the bad news about the economy then go to a Town Hall for Hope meeting near you.  Dave Ramsey will be providing insiteful answers to questions that are nagging at you about the current economy.  Even if you are not currently struggling financially this will be helpful resource for your future.

This is being broadcast live in over 5,000 different venues nationwide, so I'm sure there is one near you.  Find one, go!

Good Friday Service

Friday night we went to the Good Friday Service at Duke Chapel and let me say, it was an awesome experience.  It started off like a typical service with hymns sung and a brief sermon.  After that, there six candles and a "Christ" candle lit up front.  Someone came and read six passages from Matthew, starting with the scene in Gethsamane and ending with the crucifixion.  After each passage was read, we sung a line from a hymn and a candle was extinguished.  By the end, all of the candles and all of the lights were cut off in the chapel.  When I say all of the lights, I mean ALL of the lights!

If you ever wondering what a big chapel like Duke's looks like with all the lights off at night, it's really dark.  As I was sitting there, I was expecting the lights to come back on after a few seconds, but they didn't.  I kept hoping they would come back on, but they still didn't.  The thought that ran through my mind at that point was, "this is what the disciples must have felt like after Jesus died."  Total dispair, waiting for something to happen, but nothing.  They had placed ALL of their hopes on this man being their Messiah and now he's dead.  To me it only added to the awesomeness of the ressurection.  It was truly and amazing experience.

Also, we were in a thunderstorm, so shortly after the lights went off we had lightning that lit up the entire chapel, followed by a huge clap of thunder!