So since my last post I've aged a year. Actually, I guess technically I've only aged by 12 days but my year count has increased by 1. You know how you know you're getting old? When people hear it's your birthday and don't instantly ask how old you are for fear of possibly offending you.
So my birthday was last Thursday and 2 hours before I officially turned 31 I got undoubtedly the best birthday present I could have ever asked for when the Hawks won the Cup! Of course, with all the celebrating that went on that night it made me feel . . . less than optimal on my actual birthday. That's in fact the 2nd time I've done that to myself, where I've partied so much on my birthday eve (and, naturally, when it became my birthday at midnight) that I've had to somewhat suffer through my actual birthday. The other one was my 20th, so it's good to see I'm progressing. Take that maturity!
This weekend was pretty action-packed. Went to the Cubs/Sox game on Friday, which was weird because of what a complete after-thought it was in light of the Hawks parade and rally. Usually the whole city gets baseball fever for the Crosstown Classic (regardless of the teams' records) but this year it was much more of a "baseball? they're still playing that?" kind of feel. Still was a lot of fun even though the Cubs were roundly trounced. Right after the game I hitched a ride (being in no driving shape myself) out to Davis, IL for my friend Chicken's bachelor party. Having been drinking for the better part of 9 hours by the time I arrived, my memory is a bit on the hazy side (to put it mildly) but what I remember was a good time. It is funny how full circle things come. You party and drink with all your friends in college and for a really long time it's just an unbelievable amount of fun. But inevitably you get into your mid-to-late 20s and you're still doing the same thing. And it's still fun, but it's just no longer the unbelievably awesome time it once was (particularly because the hangovers start getting way worse). Then you get older still and you and your friends don't get together nearly that often anymore, and so now when you do you start to appreciate how rare it is. And in that way this thing that was really fun and then kinda old becomes really fun again.
Anyway, Saturday was my brother's college graduation (Congrats Zac!) and then that night we went up to Ravinia to see Steve Martin play some bluegrass. That was a ton of fun and Ravinia is definitely the best type of environment to see that in. He's a great banjo player and of course was quite entertaining between songs too. I remember listening to Steve Martin records as a kid (I know that makes me sound like I'm 50 but it's true) and always wanting to see him live so to finally get a chance was really something special. And the fact that he wasn't doing stand-up actually makes it better in a way. While I still love those records (now, of course, updated to MP3s) that comedy is definitely a product of its time and to see him up there now doing the "wild and crazy guy" routine would have just seemed really stale and dated. So I'm glad I got to see him doing something that you can tell he loves and is still challenged by. The one real piece of nostalgia he allowed himself (and his audience) was closing with a bluegrass version of King Tut, and that was awesome!
This weekend I am running in this. Climbing up cargo nets, scrambling over cars, leaping through fire, and crawling in mud under barbed wire! Woo hoo! Gonna be 85 degrees too! At least it's only a 5k. Too bad I've run a total of 3 times in the last month. Happy first father's day to me!
Getting excited for the move, yet dreading all the packing that still needs to be done between now and next Friday. And with a wedding to go to this Friday, a Cubs game and Patton Oswalt show on Saturday, and then the race Sunday this weekend doesn't appear to offer much in the way of free time either. I foresee a lot of frantic packing next week and a very late night next Thursday. We hope to have everybody over for a housewarming/poker/grilling/karaoke party sometime this summer if we can ever find a free weekend to do it.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Friday, June 04, 2010
Back again after a long hiatus. I'll spare you the excuses.
First of all (and sorry for those not interested in sports) I have to weigh in on the perfect game that was but wasn't. I definitely think the call should have been overturned. I've read a lot of arguments online about why it shouldn't be reversed and it all basically boils down to the fact that blown calls happen all the time and you can't just cherry-pick one time to reverse it no matter how big the moment was. In other words, outs 1-26 should be treated the same as out #27. And I couldn't disagree more. Out #27 is different because it ends the game. If you blow a call at any other point in the game, it changes the circumstances from that point forward so you can't reverse it later because there's no way to know conclusively what would have happened. But that's not the case here. At the moment that Galarraga had the ball in his mitt and his foot on the bag the game was over. End of story.
All Bud Selig would have been doing by reversing the call is acknowledging that fact. And a fact is exactly what it is; this is not the Music City Miracle here, which some people still dispute. There is not one person in the world (including the umpire who made the call) that is making the argument that the guy was actually safe. So all this nonsense about it being a slippery slope and opening Pandora's Box to reverse this call is just that - nonsense. Every week scorekeepers retroactively change hits to errors and vice versa, and in 1991 an MLB panel got together and retroactively decided to throw out over 50 no-hitters for various reasons. So it's just completely preposterous to say we can't change something "once it's in the books". I don't understand how you can make the argument that what's best for the game and the right thing to do is to have the official record acknowledge something that everyone on the planet is in complete agreement on as being incorrect.
Now believe me, if we were talking about matters from a legal standpoint I would have completely the opposite opinion. In fact, that's the position I do have now when people want to retroactively change the law to make BP pay more than what they're legally required to for the spill. But this is not a criminal proceeding. I'm just about the biggest sports fan in the world, but it's just sports. Bud should have done the right thing. It's the right thing for Galarraga, it's the right thing for the Tigers, it's the right thing for the fans, it's the right thing for the game, and (possibly most importantly) it's the right thing for the umpire. All Bud's done is prove himself to be completely gutless. I have always, well, if not quite defended him then at least held the opinion that he wasn't deserving of the disdain that most fans have for him. But this was it. I will gladly sign any "fire Bud Selig" petition that comes my way.
One final note on this. A man in Ohio with the same name as the umpire has had to shut off his phone service because he's being harassed. God, people are idiots.
Speaking of BP, I do find it hilarious that starting this year the Cubs/Sox series is now for the right to hoist - the BP Cup. Who the hell wants to win that? I hope that whoever wins the season series this year refuses to take it.
Finally, and again on the oil spill, I do think that Obama has screwed this up pretty bad. Not in any specific action that he's taken with regards to the cleanup, but in his other actions. Bush was (rightfully) criticized for waiting too long to visit Louisiana after Katrina and going on vacation before the situation was resolved. Obama, to starkly contrast himself with the actions of his predecessor, decided to wait a while before visiting Louisiana after the spill and to go on vacation before the situation was resolved. And I'd also suggest that in the middle of two wars, the worst oil spill in US history, and a potentially explosive situation in the Koreas, that now is not the ideal time to give an interview to Marv Albert and talk about Lebron James and the Bulls. Two days after the spill, the right-wingers were already screaming about it being "Obama's Katrina" - which was totally ridiculous at the time. But it should have served as a strict warning that they needed to do everything in their power to not even appear anything like Bush with regards to this incident. In that they failed miserably. With all that being said, however, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a huge difference in the situations is that the cleanup of New Orleans was always the domain of the federal government once it was declared a federal disaster area, while the spill was caused by corporations and they are the ones responsible for the cleanup. All Obama can do is hold their feet to the fire.
First of all (and sorry for those not interested in sports) I have to weigh in on the perfect game that was but wasn't. I definitely think the call should have been overturned. I've read a lot of arguments online about why it shouldn't be reversed and it all basically boils down to the fact that blown calls happen all the time and you can't just cherry-pick one time to reverse it no matter how big the moment was. In other words, outs 1-26 should be treated the same as out #27. And I couldn't disagree more. Out #27 is different because it ends the game. If you blow a call at any other point in the game, it changes the circumstances from that point forward so you can't reverse it later because there's no way to know conclusively what would have happened. But that's not the case here. At the moment that Galarraga had the ball in his mitt and his foot on the bag the game was over. End of story.
All Bud Selig would have been doing by reversing the call is acknowledging that fact. And a fact is exactly what it is; this is not the Music City Miracle here, which some people still dispute. There is not one person in the world (including the umpire who made the call) that is making the argument that the guy was actually safe. So all this nonsense about it being a slippery slope and opening Pandora's Box to reverse this call is just that - nonsense. Every week scorekeepers retroactively change hits to errors and vice versa, and in 1991 an MLB panel got together and retroactively decided to throw out over 50 no-hitters for various reasons. So it's just completely preposterous to say we can't change something "once it's in the books". I don't understand how you can make the argument that what's best for the game and the right thing to do is to have the official record acknowledge something that everyone on the planet is in complete agreement on as being incorrect.
Now believe me, if we were talking about matters from a legal standpoint I would have completely the opposite opinion. In fact, that's the position I do have now when people want to retroactively change the law to make BP pay more than what they're legally required to for the spill. But this is not a criminal proceeding. I'm just about the biggest sports fan in the world, but it's just sports. Bud should have done the right thing. It's the right thing for Galarraga, it's the right thing for the Tigers, it's the right thing for the fans, it's the right thing for the game, and (possibly most importantly) it's the right thing for the umpire. All Bud's done is prove himself to be completely gutless. I have always, well, if not quite defended him then at least held the opinion that he wasn't deserving of the disdain that most fans have for him. But this was it. I will gladly sign any "fire Bud Selig" petition that comes my way.
One final note on this. A man in Ohio with the same name as the umpire has had to shut off his phone service because he's being harassed. God, people are idiots.
Speaking of BP, I do find it hilarious that starting this year the Cubs/Sox series is now for the right to hoist - the BP Cup. Who the hell wants to win that? I hope that whoever wins the season series this year refuses to take it.
Finally, and again on the oil spill, I do think that Obama has screwed this up pretty bad. Not in any specific action that he's taken with regards to the cleanup, but in his other actions. Bush was (rightfully) criticized for waiting too long to visit Louisiana after Katrina and going on vacation before the situation was resolved. Obama, to starkly contrast himself with the actions of his predecessor, decided to wait a while before visiting Louisiana after the spill and to go on vacation before the situation was resolved. And I'd also suggest that in the middle of two wars, the worst oil spill in US history, and a potentially explosive situation in the Koreas, that now is not the ideal time to give an interview to Marv Albert and talk about Lebron James and the Bulls. Two days after the spill, the right-wingers were already screaming about it being "Obama's Katrina" - which was totally ridiculous at the time. But it should have served as a strict warning that they needed to do everything in their power to not even appear anything like Bush with regards to this incident. In that they failed miserably. With all that being said, however, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a huge difference in the situations is that the cleanup of New Orleans was always the domain of the federal government once it was declared a federal disaster area, while the spill was caused by corporations and they are the ones responsible for the cleanup. All Obama can do is hold their feet to the fire.
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