Baseball is over.

Well, the Rays lost the World Series 4-1. Did anyone else notice how it seemed that Joe Buck was giddy every time the Phillies did something good? He sure seemed happy with the outcome. I haven't liked Joe Buck as a commentator of any sporting event since he completely overreacted with the call on Randy Moss fake mooning the Green Bay Packers crowd several years ago.

If you missed that, here is what happened. Randy Moss caught a touchdown in a big game against a big rival on their field, the Green Bay Packers. For his touchdown dance, he acted like he was pulling his pants down and fake mooned the end zone crowd. It was kinda funny and you could tell he was having fun with it.

That self-righteous pompous blowhard Joe Buck immediately goes off and claims "That is disgusting!! I apologize to all of our viewers that had to witness such a despicable act." And on and on. Please. This was shortly after Randy's repeated run-ins with notoriety, such as gently moving along a traffic copy with his CAR, and other such shenanigans, so it was quite obvious that Joe Schmuck was looking for any small opportunity to blast the guy.

Anywho, my dislike for Blow Schmuck has been pretty consistent ever since that game. It isn't just that though. He seems to absolutely love overstating facts and scenarios and blowing everything out of proportion a la Brent Musburger. ugh. At least baseball is over now, and Schmoe Suck doesn't do commentary for the NHL.

Here is a video of Mo' Sucks call on Randy Moss' DISGUSTING act. My above quote was purely from memory and it was actually pretty close to what he actually said.

Oh well, time to move on. Go Stars!!!

Skunk Bailey!!!

Bailey absolutely loves skunks. We first found this out when we were dating. It was around March or April and Sheila and Bailey came over to my house in the evening. We let her run around for a bit while we shot a few hoops. After awhile it occurred to us that Bailey wasn't by us anymore. So we called for her and a few seconds later, she came from the side of the house and we could tell she was in pain. She was kinda snorting and coughing and trying to wipe off her face on anything and everything, including by rubbing it on the driveway. She settled in the front lawn rubbing her face repeatedly in the grass. At that point the smell hit me. Skunk. Direct face shot. She was not happy and neither were we. That was skunk interaction 1.

Then, a few months later, I was out walking her without a leash one time when all of a sudden a skunk waddled across the sidewalk several yards in front of us. Bailey took off after it and met up with it in the middle of the road. The skunk shot a small spray, this time it was just a glancing blow. From that point on, it is a rule that she always has to be leashed on a walk.

We got her a skunk costume for Halloween this year and here she is!

Hippodrome

For as long as I can remember, I have disliked the smell of the mulch that they put around the trees in the fall. I always assumed it was because it was mixed with manure. And, don't get me wrong, that's a really good reason to dislike the smell, but there was something else I couldn't really put my finger on.

This labor day, we went to the South Dakota State Fair and spent a bit of time in the Hippodrome watching my niece and nephew ride horses. I hadn't been in that barn for many many years - probably since watching my brother and cousin play hockey after I moved on from that career. It was fun to walk around it again and realize that we were playing hockey in a horse barn growing up, and not the other way around like I had thought as a kid. I remember thinking it was strange that there were horse stalls and a concession stand named "The Feed Box" in our hockey rink.

So all this brings us to Friday when I walked out of work early to get to a friend's wedding and the landscaping company had just put manure mulch out that day. Finally everything came together with my recent Hippodrome visit and I realized all this time that when I was smelling the manure enriched mulch my subconscious was actually bringing me back to my wonderful days playing hockey in the Hippodrome! I'm serious, that is exactly what went through my mind when that odor wafted through my nose!

So, without further ado, equal opportunity guest blogger Mom has sent some pictures that instigated me to write this post. From my old hockey days, and one of them even features the Feed Box!

Mom tells me that the reason I was sad here was becuase I had broken my stick in the game.

Really, I did have fun, I just hated all of the preparations and getting suited up.

Baileyween

Okay Okay I Love The Red Sox!

The Red Sox are the greatest team in baseball. No one can beat them. They will win it all!

There, now can the Rays just finish this series out and get to the World Series?

My pro sports team luck continues. Since my Tampa Bay post, the Red Sox came back from 7-0 and won game 5. Now, they are tied at 1 in Game 6. Since my Fabian Brunnstrom post, the Dallas Stars have lost 2 games in a row. And, tomorrow, the Vikings play the Bears, and I'm getting a bad feeling about how that is going to go.

Oh well, its just sports, its not life or death. Maybe I'm still paying the price for the Stars winning the Stanely Cup in 1999. And that probably would have never happened if the Vikings had won the Super Bowl in 1998 season like they were supposed to.

I was lucky enough to be at that NFC Championship game in Jan. 1999 when the Vikings played the Falcons. That year, Gary Anderson had been perfect in Field Goals - never missed a single one. Then the NFC Championship game came and as soon as they lined up in the second half for a field goal, I had that feeling, and sure enough, he missed his first field goal of the year. The game ended in a tie and the Falcons won in overtime by a field goal.

Ok, back to the game. The Rays just got out of the inning without giving up anymore runs.

Go Red Sox!! ;)


OK, that didn't work either, the Red Sox won tonight.

Fabian Brunnström!!!!

I am happy that the NHL has started. One of my many DirecTV sports subscriptions is for NHL Center Ice so that I can follow the Dallas Stars from Chicago. I've followed Dallas since they were the North Stars in Minnesota. We went to many games growing up in the old Met Stadium, even saw the 80's Oilers team play there with all of Cousin Tom's favorite players.

Tonight was the debut of Fabian Brunnstrom for the Stars and he scored a Hat Trick! Other Stars franchise players to do that in their NHL rookie season include Mike Modano and Dino Ciccarelli, but apparently only two other players have done it in their NHL debut.

You know, I played hockey once. Just ask my Grandma O. She'll tell you all about how much "I Hate Hockey!!" Well it's far more fun to watch than I must have been having when I played in the squirts. I think I really did hate it back then, but I watch alot of it now.

Tampa Bay 3 - Red Sox 1

Wow. Tampa Bay is one game away from the World Series!! Since the Twins didn't make the playoffs, I've kind of adopted the Rays as the team I'd like to see take it all. It helps that there are two ex-Twins on their team, Matt Garza (P) and Jason Bartlett (SS). Last year, we went to the final Twins home games, and being hip with the times, I bought a Bartlett shirt. Then, he was traded to Tampa Bay. This year, I bought a Cuddyer Twins shirt, and he spent most of the season on the DL. I'm not buying anymore specific sports shirts.

Anyways, back to Tampa Bay. Their manager, Joe Maddon, has had everyone buzzing about how he doesn't follow the rules. I tried to find examples, but most of the stories I found were too bloated and not specific enough until I finally found one that pointed to specifics. Here are some of things Joe Maddon does that bucks general Baseball trends.

1) intentionally walk dangerous batters with the bases loaded
2) have switch hitters hit from the same side as the pitcher (hitting right against right handed pitcher)
3) put in his ace closer very early in the game if the situation calls for it
4) put crazy defensive shifts on willing to give up the base hit to force the hitter to change their power approach
5) isn't afraid of his runners getting the first or third out at third stretching out hits
6) wears goofy glasses

All of these, with the exception of #6, are things little league managers have probably thought of doing, but he is actually doing this in the big leagues with great success. Very interesting to follow and its nice to see someone like him get ahead. Tonight, these things seemed to work perfectly as they lit up Tim Wakefield early and often and won 13-4.

Of course, if you are keeping track at home, now that I have written this and picked a side, the Red Sox will now go 3-0 and win the ALCS. Just my rotten luck. Oh, and it should go without saying I was cheering for the Cubs, too.

Who is Bailey?

Bailey is Sheila's dog. I inherited her through marriage and have grown to be quite fond of her. When I first met Sheila, I knew she had a dog, which was almost a deal breaker. Having never grown up with dogs - we had cats - I didn't want to start now. But, it turned out OK because Bailey is basically a cat with dog teeth. She is a Lhasa Apso-poodle mix lap dog that on average has slightly more energy than a cat. That usually only comes out when the doorbell rings or when Sheila gets home from work. Otherwise, she just lounges around and sleeps.

She likes to attack the vaccuum cleaner, growl at cars and people passing by outside, and growl and bark at me when I come to bed late after Sheila and her have already gone to sleep. She also really loves to chase skunks. She's been sprayed twice and we now make it a rule to always have her leashed on evening walks no matter how short they are. Most of the stories that we find funny about her are 'you had to be there' stories, so I'll try to keep them to a minimum.

This weekend, I bought a few giant bags of Halloween candy to take into work and put the grocery bag on the floor to take in Monday morning. Sheila warned that Bailey would get into it, but knowing better, I said not to worry about it. Well, Monday morning comes and since mornings aren't my thing, I got out of the house and halfway to work before remembering that I left the bags of candy on the floor. I couldn't turn around, I had a meeting, so I rushed home right afterwards. Bailey had opened the bag and gotten through a couple of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and attempted to get into a couple of milk duds, but those proved too tough to open.

This wasn't her first run in with chocolate and thank goodness we didn't have any dark chocolate in there (that is what is really really bad for dogs). She didn't get sick, but this morning she passed a reese's wrapper on her morning walk.

First Post!

Who would have thought I would be the last of my brothers to get into this world of blogging? Cuz Tom paved the way. All of their blogs will be far more interesting than ours. They have kids to liven things up. We just have a goofy dog (Bailey) that owns our living area. It's her world and we're just living in it.