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Monday, November 5, 2001
Forty years ago last week, there was an announcement that Washington DC would be losing their professional baseball team, the Washington Senators. That team was moved to Minnesota, and played in Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington (on the site of what is now the Mall of America). I wasn't even born yet. Calvin Griffith, a man who had lived his entire life around baseball and inherited the team from his father, was the last of a dying breed - the "Baseball Family" who owned the team and only the team - that was what they did.
In the last forty years, Calvin has gone, replaced by Carl Pohlad, and the team has become a big part of summer in this area. And much of the upper midwest. I remember afternoons in the yard with a small transistor radio, listening to the Twins games. I remember hearing Hallsey Hall and Ray Scott. Herb Carniel. John Gordon, and other play-by-players who've since gone on to other things.
I don't know if it means that much to you, but there are many names which are a permanent part of my consciousness and childhood. Jim Kaat. Zolio Versalles. Jim Perry. Cesar Tovar. Harmon Killebrew. Rod Carew. Billy Martin (yes, THAT Billy Martin). Tony Oliva. Frank Quilici. Larry Hisle. Lyman Bostock. Roy Smalley. Butch Wynegar. Hosken Powell. Ken Landreaux. John Castino. Ron Jackson. Rob Wilfong. Ron Davis. Greg Gagne. Frank Viola. Kent Hrbek. Gary Gaetti. Tom Brunansky. Bert Blyleven. Al Newman. Dan Gladden. Les Straker. Kirby Puckett. Brian Harper. Shane Mack. Players and lucky guys and talent and lots of fun afternoons and evenings.
Baseball isn't football or hockey. In football, there are something like 14 teams that make it into the playoffs. 45%. In hockey, all but five make it in. Basketball has something like 8 teams. Baseball? Until recently, only four of twenty-eight made that final cruel cut. Now, we've got eight. 26.66% In some ways, Baseball is a cruel sport. They start preparing in February. They play 162-game seasons, in everything from snow to rain to sun to brutal heat to snow again. In October, the World Series Champions can look forward to three months off, before they've got to go back to work. No other sport has such a short off-season, a brutal season schedule, and slightly over a quarter of the teams make it into the playoffs. Eight months of work for a slim chance at glory.
But baseball is a game that can be played by small kids. It's one of the first they learn. It's complex. Hit the ball, then run over there. Wait. Run there. Then run there. Then run home to where you started. Anyone who's ever attempted to explain the infield fly rule has yearned for the relative simplicity of chess, or even the ability to say "look, can't we start with something easy like Thermodynamics?"
Baseball is a game of numbers. Statistics. It's slow. It's the only major-league team sport that's not bound to a clock. You can't plan your day around a game - you plan for the game, and "something after". Baseball doesn't allow ties, either. You keep playing until someone wins. And everyone gets to play - if you end up standing in the outfield watching a real pitcher's duel, you'll eventually get your chance to face that fellow. Versus football where you keep slugging it out in the trenches and all the action's behind you, above you, or around you.
In baseball there are no "extra players" - no "easy positions". First Base has perhaps the most strategy of any position in any game, and it all varies - not to the team, or even to team and stadium, but to every individual player, every individual play. Catcher's even tougher - you've got to squat in a cramp-inducing crouch that ruins knees and backs, prepared at any minute to catch the ball, leap up, and fire a shot some 120 feet or more to the second baseman or shortstop as the runner from first took off to steal.
Outfield is more "hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of sheer terror". Imagine - two hundred feet away a man hits a small round ball - it's smaller than your fist and moving at better than 100 mph. Yet you've got to find it, watch it, and make sure it hits your glove. Against a backdrop which could be a white teflon roof, white puffy clouds, gray skies, midnight black with brilliant sodium lights in your face, or a painfully blue clear sky. If you're lucky you'll get a nice easy grab. If not, you'll have to make a running, diving catch, then leap up to throw the ball back from whence it came to beat some other fellow who only had to run 90 feet, and took off before the ball hit the bat. Of course, those are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones get to run back into a fence or wall and watch as the ball crosses it, sometimes inches out of reach, sometimes miles.
The Twins have been here since before I was born. They moved in 1961, and started playing with the sound of airplanes roaring over the stadium. An outdoor ballpark when everyone was wishing for domes. They shared their green-grass home with a football team, and like all multi-use stadiums, the park wasn't a great fit for either team. Fortunately for the Twins, they were on the winning end of the stick, and had a horseshoe of bleachers and straightaway left field was wide open.
As was the sports market. In the late 50s and 60s, pro sports were just discovering what Horace Greeley had encouraged nearly a century earlier - "Go West, young man". The teams that had stopped at the Mississippi earlier poured forth, and fortunately the Twins just barely made it across. They were the first in a bloom that would bring the Vikings, North Stars, and eventually the return of both Basketball (remember the Lakers? Ever wonder why they were called that? Guess what the original name was - Minneapolis Lakers. Well, Duh. Not the first time LA ever stole a team, and believe me, if they're willing to piss off Brooklyn, then I'm perfectly comfortable to wait for revenge. Brooklynites get first dibs) and Hockey (anyone heard from Norm Greed lately? Me neither. Bastard).
The Twins weaved their luckless, occasionally hapless way into our hearts by just being normal guys. After 25 years, we'd grown to know that they would, occasionally, challenge for the top spot in their sport. But most of us had eyes for the Vikings - we figured with four failed tries in the Super Bowl, it was just a matter of time. So we thought. Most of our crystal balls blew up when they encountered Denny Green, of course. But I digress.
When Pohlad bought the Twins for a bargain-basement $38 million in 1984, most of us figured the savior had landed. We didn't know Pohlad was a greedy old cuss who demanded profitability. I, for one, will never associate with or do business with Marquette banks ever again given Pohlad's behavior. Carl just can't be taught. I had high hopes at one time...
An event in 1987 should have taught Pohlad just how hungry we were for a real winner. On a Monday night, well after 10 pm (we roll the streets up here after the 10 pm news - anyone out after that's a hooligan or drunkard), 50,000 people came down to the Metrodome - some in their PJs to welcome home from Detroit a winning team - a team that had captures the American League pennant. Fifty THOUSAND people - most of whom were enjoying their only chance to get into the metrodome during the playoff stretch, due to the tight availability of world series tickets, stood and screamed themselves hoarse while stunned, surprised, and awed Twins players came out on the field and just enjoyed the moment.
This evening later gave rise to a video with Kenny Loggins "Please, Celebrate Me Home" and the Twins players in both game situations and from that night. It also gave birth to the Homer Hanky. I still have mine. An original. I think my sister's got the videotape.
If anything should have taught Pohlad about this area, it was that night. However, if that didn't work, then the next ten days should have driven the point home with a rock. Frank Buck's line about "55,000 screaming Scandanavian James Browns" struck home in those glory days. With the Twins battling the whole way, they took the first World Championship of any team Minnesota had managed to pull off in the last 40 years. I remember sitting in my parent's living room, and when that final out came, I leapt to my feet. Danced around. Called my buddies out at St. John's. Our conversation consisted of two words. "I know" over and over and over and over. We were delirious.
I'll never forget lying in bed, too wound up to sleep, listening to Queen's "We are the Champions" and just luxuriating in the sensation that, despite losing four Super Bowls, at least one Minnesota team could pull it out in the end. We could win. We could all be winners, if we fought long and hard enough and tried very hard to make it happen. And we did.
I remember sitting down with my buddy (he of the "I Know" fame) the next morning and crafting an e-mail that ran over multiple screens. In those pre-internet (and pre-employment) days, we were able to pull out of a hat the names and correct spellings of every member of the team. We knew batting averages. We knew power rankings, and all the other minutiae of the game. Heck, we'd been to a game early in that season (one of four or five in my lifetime), and we did manage to get reserved seats.
Another monumental baseball game came the night after my first date with Ann. I went to see some old friends who had late-season lower-deck reserved seats, and as we talked, I realized that I really did love her, and I wasn't just going nuts. I didn't know it was one of the last times I would see a friend of mine (father of my best man in the wedding) alive, though. But I digress.
And the following season, the same team with few changes drew three million fans - the very first major league baseball team to do so. In fact, the team averaged 37,416 per game - or filling the stadium nearly 75% to capacity every single home game.
Three years later, lightning struck again as the Twins, again, won the World Series. Most of us knew this wasn't a Dynasty by any means. It was a couple of hard-working guys catching lucky breaks, and finally getting rewarded. Finally. Since then, we've had to endure five straight ninety-loss seasons, and this last, where the team actually showed significant improvement, falling out of contention finally in August was quite a teaser to next season.
Now this.
Now, Baseball is threatening to "contract". That is, to dump two teams; as they expanded only four years ago, this is a bit unusual, shall we say. Contraction involves a couple of steps.
First, the owners must vote to buy out the team owners who would be dropped from the league. Then the players would be dispersed in a "contraction draft" where the other teams would get to pick the players - something like hyenas picking the bones of the carcass.
Then, of course, the inevitable legal battles. They've managed to piss off not only the stadium commission but also the State's Attorney General. That's just not a good thing.
And this isn't just a big deal here in Minnesota. We're not the only ones who would be hurt, as Baseball uses a "farm club" system. The Twins, lacking the financial clout that other "big-market" teams have, need to build up their players from the grass roots - only so they can be lured away after they prove themselves to those big-market teams for big-money contracts. The loss of the Twins would leave Edmonton, Canada, and New Britain, Connecticut, Fort Myers, Florida, the Quad City area of Iowa and Illinois, and Elizabethton, Tennessee, with orphaned minor-league teams. These small-town parks would go dark unless some other team was looking to expand. Five other cities besides the one I live in would lose their team.
It will remove "cheap games" from the local lexicon. If you've got $60 per butt, you can see a Vikings game. Hockey is sold out except for single-seat spots - Basketball's just expensive. Baseball is one of the only professional sports you could go to see on a Saturday night, bring the kids, and blow perhaps $50 on tickets, parking, program, pop, hotdogs, and souvineers. For a family of four. And get pretty decent seats, too.
It will also leave grown men and women, little girls and little boys with broken hearts. How many kids surreptitiously hide under the blanket with an ear-bud or headphones, listening to a late-night west-coast game after bedtime? How many fall asleep with their gloves under their pillow, hat on their head, dreaming of that bottom-of-the-ninth-two-outs-bases-loaded grand slam home run they'll hit when they're in Game Seven of their World Series? Is there anything better than sitting in the stands, any stands, and listening to the crack of the bat on ball and watching that ball sail out of the park (just as long as it's your hero from your team doing the hitting)?
And, depressingly, baseball owners seem to be the people who are least involved in reality any more. Problems with money in baseball? Blame the communities that support them. Why not? The Twins get the gate revenues, the concession revenues, and a whole lot more - in fact, the $55 million dollar, not yet 20 year old Metrodome makes between $500,000 and $700,000 annually from Twins games. Think about that. A special-purpose building taking up acres of valuable downtown real estate is used 81 times a year, plus the occasional pre-season and post-season game, and as a result, they make half a million dollars. In another perspective - the metrodome opens before the game for batting practice, toss in a three-hour game, and the cleanup afterwards - assume each game will chew up about six hours of time. That's a whopping $1440 an hour which the Twins net this facility. Frankly, any CEO making $3 million or more a year makes more than that an hour.
Think of it. A $55 million building pulling in $1440 an hour. And due to the requirements for baseball, much of the field needs to be protected and that means any other events occurring in the dome need to have additional setup/teardown time. All for 81 games.
And the Twins complain they aren't getting enough. Consider that in Arizona, the new World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks drew a million less fans this year than they did in their inaugural season, only four years ago.
There's also another problem. Consider that baseball's complaint about "competitiveness" is their own doing. Why would you pay a guy - ONE GUY - $250 MILLION for a job for eight or ten years? Especially one that he will, at best, be good at for seven or eight more years - if you're lucky? Reality, what a concept. Especially when you mention "money" and "baseball".
Baseball's problem is a complete and total lack of reality. The big-market teams need to understand that it's not going to work if they drop the small-market teams from the league. Most of us do not live in big-market areas, and the main and prime conflict in American sports is the underdog defeating the juggernaut. Last night's victory by the Diamondbacks illustrates that, despite it being in reality two big-money teams. Arizona was "the new kid" and The Yankees are... well, The Yankees. Few teams in any other sport have quite the mystique the Yankees do. But Americans love the little guy beating the big one. We love David and Goliath. No matter how big we get, we still see ourselves as David.
In reality, Arizona was a team of hired guns. Professionals brought in to do a job, not to build history, not to get a community comfortable with a team. I submit to you that here in Minnesota we enjoyed the team's World Series wins more because we'd suffered with them through the low times, the long, lean years, and the longer "what if" and "how about" off-seasons. You don't have too many Kirby Pucketts, Carl Yastremskis, or other "entire career for one team" players any more. You don't have too many class acts, or cutups, or funny guys playing ball any more. You've got a bunch of money-grubbing ballplayers. Which were brought about by money-grubbing owners tossing around big paychecks to draw big names to fill their ballparks.
Baseball doesn't balance it's books anymore, which is the fundamental problem. If Bill Gates bought a team, within five years, he could have a dynasty - all by hiring the best in the league for half-a-billion dollar contracts. One season of championship, he could dump off those players with their big-money contracts and move on to something else. There's no curb on the owners offering outrageous sums to half-assed ballplayers hoping that they'll mature into real, mature, professional people.
I remember as a child the ball games (baseball and football) did have talk of the player's "off-season jobs". Now, "off-season" is training time. Granted, making millions a year is an incentive to work harder and stay healthy, but where do those millions come from? Again, owners who don't have to worry, but are pouring money into a leaky bucket, hoping to build up a "brand" to sell it on in a few years. Why would you want to buy a pro team if all you're going to do is sink money into it and pray you get some of it back?
Why else, but for the love of the game? And if you don't love the game, get out. If you do love the game, then listen up, because this is what Baseball needs to do to stay alive.
First, they need to pool ALL of the revenue. Gate receipts, licensed materials, box revenue, concessions, parking, television, and all the rest. All of it into the pool. Then divide it into two parts.
60% of the revenue should be distributed equally. 30 even shares. Regardless. Fair is fair. Each team gets a flat rate, regardless. Are you all in the game together to keep the league alive, or are you looking out for yourself?
Split the other pile into a 90/10 split. 10% of that (4% of the total) should be set aside for team performance incentives - playoffs and world series payments. The other 90% (36% of the total) should be split among the teams proportionally to the amount of revenue they bring in. If the Yankees bring in the most money, they get the largest percentage share back out. Fair enough.
Next, salary caps. The money coming into the team from those various sources becomes their payroll pool. No fair putting additional money in from outside, unless it's invested equally across the league. Say the owners agree to invest $50 million in the league - that $50,000,000 goes into the same pool with all the other money, split 60/36/4 in the usual split. Wanna do better? Get a good team. Can't afford one? Find some creative ways to draw people. The local St. Paul Saints, a "semi-pro" team, fills their 5500 seat ballpark every night. Are they resting on their laurels? Hell no - every single home game has some stunt or promotion. Why? Because people what to be associated with fun, with a winner. The Saints haven't done that well recently, but then again, neither have the Twins. I think the Twins would be happy with half-full stadiums, which they could get with a little work.
Next, reclassification - all baseball team organizations are classified non-profit organizations. That way there's no need to run a business, and no expectation that there will be a profit. Changes the tax structure a bit, but more fundamentally, the way of thinking. You won't make a profit on baseball, so don't even think about it, OK?
Next, teams that would like new stadiums should have the following requirements - whatever percentage of funding the team expects the local community to provide via government sources, that percentage of the team's overall ownership resides with the community. Don't like it? Well, why would we invest $300 million in a new building for a team that might run off in a year or two? Simple agreements - you agree to pay 81 games a year in this building every year for the next 30 years, or you will pay the stadium authority a flat $1,000,000 per game missed in each of those next 30 years. Exceptions can be made for weather-related cancellations that are not made up.
Teams that don't want to agree to such restrictions can then look to raise private funding. Fund your own ballparks, for all we care. But if you're asking for a free ride on my back, I'd damned well better see some return on MY investment. You've had your chance, what about mine?
Baseball, if it contracts, is admitting the error of Selig's expansionist ways, and of the eventual doom of major league sports in general. None of the owners will admit that, however. From their lofty, unrealistic perch, they see us fools as just that. Fools. Few if any of us will be willing to invest emotionally in a group of people or organization or business that could, for whatever flimsy reason, pick up stakes and move without as much as a "by your leave" or even a civil "goodbye". The football Colts scurrying from Baltimore in the late-night move still leaves a bad taste for many.
Legalized extortion by major league baseball to eliminate the Twins after forty years in this community since they didn't get their free stadium is a sickening and pathetically disgusting way to end a long, successful relationship. We've all seen the equivalent in our childhoods. "I'm gonna take my ball and bat and GO HOME!"
If that's the kind of game they want to play, let 'em. We'll take what we have that they want (MONEY) and go play by ourselves.
All right. Two things I forgot from the weekend - first is that if you're going to attempt to do any sort of up-tempo music and use the word "deo" (pronounced "day-oh"), it had damned well better be followed by the phrase "Daylight come and me want go home." The church choir attempted to "rock out" yesterday morning with something that included the phrase "jubilante deo". Oh, no. Not here, please. Just not a good idea.
Second thing is that I was cheering FOR the Yankees as a semi-sentimental favorite last night. They're also the American League champs (same league as my Twins), so that's another reason. But the better team won out. So be it.
And today, we've begun the serious thinking. Rhiannon will most likely soon shift to a daycare that is more supportive, closer to her school (actually in the same building), and more worthwhile. Also, it's cheaper. By almost 50%. Wow.
heh. I hight Olo Foxburr of Fair Downs via the Hobbit Name Generator. Of course, some wags around here (had they read The Hobbit or Lord Of The Rings) would probably tag me Lumpy "Stinky" Proudfoot of Odiferous Hill. Or worse, Stinky Foulwind from Bagshot Row...
And the best part - today, with two days left on being the only guy to test an entire CRM product (let's be fair. I'm doing whatever the stage is before alpha - the developers have coded it, and I'm testing it before it goes to the testing department and they ask all sorts of stupid questions), I get an e-mail. Next week five of us are sitting through product training. On developing for a software suite we've never seen before. And I've got to get that set up and ready to go. Oh, and at 2 pm on Wednesday, I'm going to tour the new office space with my boss, my boss's boss, and his boss. Lovely. They need me to plan 80% of the move. Thank GOD it's in the same building. The only thing I get to worry about is if there's going to be enough space. I really, really hope so. We'll see Wednesday.
Heh. That's all I needed. I guess it's job security I was seeking. Now I got it. Nice to be needed... G'nite.
Tuesday, November 6, 2001
Huh. I had a problem this morning. I loaded up Outlook Distress at work to check my home e-mail account, and when I loaded it this morning, there was no new mail. Strange. I checked throughout the day, and there was no new incoming mail. But the outgoing mail worked. I figured there was a problem with the billing or something, and finally, when I came home (after adventures detailed below), I picked up the phone. I'd left the computer logged in from last night. Well, DUH. If I'm constantly clearing mail from the server, there's going to be no mail to read. Especially when I get it every seven minutes at home, and I grab it only every twenty from work.
Sheesh.
And tonight, I had to come back and vote. What's so frustrating about that? Well, this morning I went looking for the polling place. I was up and down the frontage road looking for the old polling place - it wasn't there. So I took Rhiannon to school. She got there three minutes early. Just in time. Then I went to work, checked the internet, and found my polling place.
Then, in the mid-afternoon, I had a complete brain transplant. Utter removal and replacement of the forebrain. Total. I got to the doctor's office and they checked my blood pressure - it's dropped from 170 over 110 to 138 over 78. Good news, man. But then I went to get the kids and went to hunt down the polling place. And looked on the wrong side of the freeway. Then, on the way back, I found the polling place. I'd passed it in the morning while taking Rhiannon to school.
There were two interesting events during that car ride, though, which had me really feeling for my kids. The first was when we were discussing the loss of baseball locally. While it's not official, the "conventional wisdom" is that the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins are the two on the bubble. The problem is that I had to try to explain the loss of the team. Both Rhiannon and Jack asked if we could take the team away from the bad men taking away our team. I told them it didn't work like that.
Both of my children were quite upset with the potential loss of the Twins - and I'll go way out on a limb here... My prediction is that they won't name the teams for several months. After a week or so there will be an announcement of a lockout of the players. After that, there will be the announcement of the deal that if the player's union accepts the salary cap the owners want, then the owners will retract the contraction. If the players do not, they won't. Then, of course, they'll blame the players. After all that, those of us poor suckers who like the team will be standing outside looking in like a kid staring at the toy display in the shop window before Christmas. Not a damned thing we could do about it, but watch.
The other thing which surprised me was their grasp of the seriousness of voting. I explained that this was an off-off-year election - the "on" years are the presidential elections where nobody counts right, the "off" years are when we here vote for governor, and then there's the off-off elections, where some mayors and school boards and school referendums are run. While I was wandering around for 40 minutes looking for the polling place, Rhiannon and Jack both kept telling me "don't give up, daddy."
I must be doing something right.
And we won't know until tomorrow morning what's up with Ann's office... Looks like Jay Benanav is running neck-and-neck with Randy Kelly - which is really surprising as Kelly had something like a seven point lead just last weekend. Go figure.
Oh well. Back to the grindstone tomorrow... G'nite.
Wednesday,
November 7, 2001
There are fifty states in the United States. Eighteen of them have baseball teams. And, of course, there are two teams from Canada (Montreal's apparently doomed Expos, and the Toronto Blue Jays). Eighteen states - one with five teams (California with the Giants, Angels, Dodgers, A's, and Padres), six with two (Texas with the Astros and Rangers, Florida with the Marlins and Devil Rays, New York with the Yankees and Mets, Pennsylvania with the Phillies and Pirates, Ohio with the Indians and Reds, and Illinois with the Cubs and White Sox). The rest (Washington's Mariners, Colorado's Rockies, Arizona's Diamondbacks, Kansas' Royals, Minnesota's Twins, Michigan's Tigers, Missouri's Cardinals, Georgia's Braves, Maryland's Orioles, Massachusett's Red Sox, and Wisconsin's (and Bud Selig's) Brewers).
Here in the United States, in 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that Major League Baseball was exempt from the Anti-Trust laws. Those laws prevent companies or organizations from carving up a region, country, or market for financial gain. They encourage competition. They encourage more than one provider of a good or service - inefficient, certainly, but we like competition. We're Americans.
And Baseball is intensely American. It's used in Advertising slogans ("Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet"). Most kids learn the Star Spangled Banner not from school but from ballgames. Heck, some kids assume the last two words of the Star Spangled Banner are "Play Ball!" (Yes, Jeff Foxworthy has a corner on the "you might be a redneck" market, and his quote is "if you think the last four words of the Star Spangled Banner are 'Gentlemen, Start your engines!' you might be a redneck!").
But baseball goes deeper than that. It's a teaching tool. A tool which allows fathers and sons to talk about life, the universe, and everything within the limits of a sport. "Keep your eye on the ball." "Don't give up." "Followthrough." "Keep digging." Baseball's part of our lexicon. "Bottom of the ninth." "Full Count." "Grand Slam." "Batter up." "Play Ball." "Strike Out." "You're up." Baseball's part of our American psyche - who didn't at least in part root for the new, unknown, mostly underdog Arizona Diamondbacks against the Yankee Juggernaut? Baseball is a long season - one of the longest in the major leagues. Baseball plays 162 games. Hockey and Basketball, combined, play 164 (82 each).
Baseball starts, if you can call it that, in January/February. Pitchers and Catchers leave their cold winter homes and head for the warm Florida (or Arizona) sunshine, for "Grapefruit League" baseball. They're joined by other players, of varying skill levels, as the managers, coaches, and others evaluate the skills available and the likelihood of making some forty men fortunate enough to be able to be paid to play a game.
Baseball ends, as we all know, with the World Series. A Baseball season doesn't consist of seemingly random single encounters between teams here and there through the season. Baseball is played in a series - two, three, or four-game encounters between two teams. They get to face one another several times over a period of days. And in baseball, it's painfully apparent that while the old sports adage "On any given day, any given team can defeat any other given team" holds true for random days, talent, skill, and knowledge eventually wins out. Baseball is the ultimate "we'll get 'em next time/series/year" sport.
Baseball has more strategy than most other sports, and is more complex than most, as well. Few other organized sports field as many players at any one time, and at least here in America, Baseball is the only sport where one side outnumbers the other by design on the field during play.
Just to show you my crystal ball isn't completely out to lunch (do crystal balls even eat lunch? I dunno), here's a whole series of predictions. Based, solely, upon my knowledge of quasi-human greed ("quasi-human" = "Baseball owners"), here's how the next few months will play out. Bud Selig will appear like the angel of death in several communities with "borderline" ball clubs. No club will be named officially. The owners will, within the next 90 days, lock out the players. The owners will also make a public proposal to the player's union that they'll withdraw their plan to contract if the players agree to a salary cap which is far lower than the players want it. Some in Congress will hold hearings on Baseball. If Baseball does officially name the Twins as one of the contraction victims, the state Attorney General, Mike Hatch, will go after baseball with both barrels blazing. He'll also likely recruit other high-powered high-buck local leaders for a run at it as well.
The courts will issue temporary, and later permanent, injunctions, requiring Baseball to field a 30-team schedule. The Owners will get their wrists slapped much like Microsoft did. And then, after all of that, there will be grumbling, there will be backing down, and in the end, someone else will own the Twins, and someone else might lose their team after all.
Baseball would love to contract the Twins out of existence. Then in five to ten years, when this market is just crying for the return of baseball and has built a beautiful new ballpark on the faint promise of a new team, they'd like to drop in a new team to play in that new ballpark for minimal rent, minimal effort, and massive returns.
I doubt that second scenario will happen. There will be plenty of people who will not allow the state, or any other governmental unit, to pay for a publicly-financed stadium. Not without part ownership of the team that plays in it. Why else would you want to fork over half a billion dollars to build a ballpark without a team?
I'm nearly finished, but there are a couple thoughts left to ruminate over...
Two things continue to strike me as very, very odd in all of this. Why is it that no one is screaming for Bud Selig to excuse himself from the whole process? I'm still at a loss as to how this baseball OWNER became one of the three legs of the Baseball triumvirate (Owners, Players, and the Commissioner). I never thought I'd be wishing for the return of Bowie Kuhn, but there you are. And why is it that no one is pointing out to the rest of the world that Selig's Milwaukee Brewers are the closest team, geographically, to the Twin Cities?
I'm still sickened by all of this. Sick to my stomach...
Does
anyone else remember what we were doing a year ago today? Me either.
That's one, two, seventeen, twenty-four, ninety-six...
Ahem.
Good news - I've actually discovered artificial intelligence! It's actually in my dishwasher. How it knows to blast water at a high enough pressure to flip gladware and tupperware containers on the top shelf, and yet leave the delicate noodle-bits stuck to the plates on the lower levels I'm just not sure. But there is no other logical explanation. It's got to be artificial intelligence.
Work today was ... brutal. And it will be worse next week. Three presentations today by the bigwigs in town. The first was a "how we got here and where we're going" bit. The second was a "this is what we'd like to do with the office bit" and the third was the "this is what you're going to be working on" bit. Tomorrow we have the "what have you been doing bit" followed by the "how do you expect to get from there to here" bit. Then the head cheeses head off. And we'll be left with our new office space decision (straight down one floor, down one floor and down the hall, or across the parking lot). No kitchen space, less than half the space (right now we have 5000 sq. feet for typically seven people in the office, and we're looking at 1500-2000 sq feet), and the possibility that we'll end up leaving our nice, new cubes for whatever we can find on the used-office-furniture market.
As you can guess, I'm going to go looking at Home Depot, and keep my eyes on the price of plywood and 2x4s. It's much easier to build your own desk right instead of "hoping" someone's going to come up with the right thing. Oh well. It could be worse. I've only got to plan for moving 32 computers, seven people, and the various phone systems, supplies, and other fun bits. Like a full-sized pop machine and refrigerator, pizza oven, microwave, and water cooler. What fun.
Though it could be so very, very much worse. I did today finally get my hands on another Dell laptop. I know others swear by Toshibas, and while they're certainly usable computers, I wouldn't plunk down my hard-earned shekels for one of those pieces of ... plastic and such. Gimme a good old Dell - I can drop in the standard Windows 2000 CD, boot it up, install, and go. I can download drivers, install, and I'm back to a near-factory-shipped machine, versus installing ONLY the version shipped from the vendor, and God help you if you deviate, because their help desk sure won't.
So now I'm back to looking at my fifteen-inch screen, a civilized keyboard, and a decent (12 Gig) hard drive. I'll probably switch (again) back to a Dell laptop as my main work system with the Toshiba as my secondary system.
I guess that's the measure of a true Geek. Not what you have, but how many. I guess it's true - size does matter. Except in geekdom, it's the size of your server rack. Ahem.
I'm going to hit the hay, so you have a wonderful evening/day/whatever.
And Keri? Thanks for the mental image of that damned goat... For the record, I'm not the one who likes a goat in lingere... No, not at all. I could name someone with that bent fancy, but I won't. Heh.
Thursday, November 8, 2001
It seems that Congress, rather than Baseball, will be Berry Berry goot to Me (if you remember the old Saturday Night Live routine - I swear that character was based on Tony Oliva, who played for, and now coaches for, what team? That's right. The Twins).
According to CNNSI.COM, both the house and senate are looking at new legal avenues, while Mike Hatch, as predicted, will take a run at the old flagpole and see who's butt ends up dangling there.
As we all know, anything with more than six arms or legs cannot make an effective decision. And greedy old men can be lead by their wallets into all sorts of situations which a sane person wouldn't enter. In fact, greedy, stupid men can most often be blamed for most of the world's problems. Whether or not they're actually at fault is another matter entirely, but we're talking blame, not fault here.
Baseball's problems come down to one of economics. Let's see if I can have this make sense.
You live in a small town on an island. On that island are eight restaurants. Ed's, Mike's, Laura's, Stan's, Holly's, Pee-Wee's, Nancy's, and Judy's. Now they're all pretty similar, with similar food, similar menus, similar locations, similar service, and even similar decor. However, the other seven do better than Pee-Wee's. Why? Who knows. Pee-Wee's probably been abused for years, because of the stupid nickname, if nothing else.
One night, after closing, the other restaurant owners get together. They call up Pee Wee. They offer to buy his place out. Then they flatten it. And they raise their prices by three bucks a plate to make up the difference. Suddenly, you're left with one less choice of where to eat. One less place to go out for dinner.
Is that fair? Not really. It's not. It's called collusion, and we have laws against that. It prevents large organizations from banding together to form a "trust" to abuse ours. Trust, that is. And it's not one of those things that is looked upon kindly.
But that leaves us with a question. What to do?
As a baseball executive, you sit down and you say "okay, we need to live within our limits. Which means no more $250 million contracts - we need a salary cap which is below our revenues. No more giving into the lunatic agents and so forth." The players need to sit down and say "good point - we need to set a budget and stick to it. And while we're at it, we should also come up with a code of conduct so that we're respected again - no more selling autographs. If you're a current player there's thirty minutes pre-game and thirty minutes post-game where you're signing everything in your face. Away from the stadium, etc., we're going to ask the public to leave you alone. If you aren't "announced" then you shouldn't be bothered. If you don't want to be announced, tell them - you go to a basketball game, tell them not to announce you. Then you don't have to sign autographs."
That way communities who get a ball team won't end up feeling like a cheap hooker by the time the process is completed. Hard-working people who put up hard-earned money to build a remarkable place for the express purpose of coming to that place to watch grown men play a game should be treated much better than baseball and other pro sports currently does. You would think that the owners would understand that, given that many of them have been cheap hookers in their pasts. The sad thing is that these days everything has a price. Then again, there are more important things that you can't buy with money.
Baseball needs to set up a budget and stick to it, and become honorable once again. Or baseball will slip further into the muck and no one will care one way or the other about it. Baseball's not everything in life. But it is special, and can be important. If they're careful, they can also be valued.
Today's been a long, weird trip.
Looks like I'm going to have to perform a radical Kershnerization process on the old Tempo, shortly. This morning the damned gorilla in a pink tutu and yellow bunny slippers showed up on my hood, just in time for my brain to start working.
It went a little something like this. Left the house with Rhiannon, needed to stop and get gas. Drove down to the corner gas station (as walking there and back would be very silly) and pulled in. Stopped the car, turned the key so the kid could listen to the radio and tried to get out. Gee, that door handle seems stuck. Tried to unlock and open. Whoops, must have pressed the wrong button. Unlock, and open. I pressed the right one, that time, I think. Try it again. Damnit, I pressed the right button... So I ended up reaching across and opening the door by pulling on the quarter-inch of rounded chrome which stuck out of the door. Good thing I have strong fingers. I got the door open.
And it was at exactly this point where my brain kicked into "survival" mode. I removed the keys. I know, it was cruel to leave the kid in the car without a radio for four minutes, but the forebrain actually functioned prior to the injection of caffeine (which, sadly, I'm no longer allowed except on special occasions - though why "morning" isn't so judged as one, I don't yet understand), and I kept the keys with me. I tried to open the door. It remained locked. I turned the key in the door. It wouldn't unlock. I tried again, this time turning and then opening at the same time. Viola. Or cello. Or what the heck, peanut butter. Anyway, it opened. So I went round the car and got gas.
And this is the point where you really should stop, scratch your head, and wonder just why you're fascinated by the story of me and a gas pump. My wife, however, will tell you there's very little difference between me and a gas pump, other than the obvious output differences - one liquid, the other ... not typically so. But I digress, and that one's brought to you by Beano (and a higher fiber intake again, so I'm told). And it's also a point where I should mention it's a good thing it was windy this morning. Anywho...
Back to our regularly scheduled program. I pumped the gas (into the car, you sick, sick humanoids), and then came around and got back in (using the key, obviously). Before I sat down, I checked the rear door. Being taller knobs (now there's a couple of words that just don't belong together in a sentence), I was able to grab and pull (no, there were no screams - despite my veiled allusions to the contrary, my car is still an inanimate, but mobile, object), and open the door. So I managed to prove it was possible to exit the deathtrap if need be. I started down the back roads to Rhiannon's school.
At one point going down the road, I noticed a faint "click/thunk" combination I was hearing from the door. This lead me to believe that, somewhere along the line, there was a short in one of the little electric doo-jobbers which locked the doors. And yes, "doo-jobbers" is actually a Ford Technical Term. I read it once somewhere. Lovely, no? So I started thinking about cutting all the wired leading to the door (after all, my father, who drove the ultimate man's man vehicle - a Ford Station Wagon - for many years, never, ever, ever had wires leading to his doors - well, until that last Crown Vic which suffered from an excess of travel and abuse before it was finally towed to oblivion (which is actually a small town in west-central Minnesota, believe it or not), because there was nothing critical in the operation of the vehicle that ran through those electric wires (yes, I know, door speakers, which in a Ford Tempo are about as useful and noticeable as a fart in a windstorm - we're talking critical, as in go forward, go backward, turn (but only when I want to, as we're heading eventually into those dreaded winter months), stop (again, within a reasonable distance - this is winter in Minnesota, despite the warm temps we've been given), and shine bright lights where I need to go).
So I was thinking about chopping wires. When I noticed the click/thunk had stopped. I tried the unlock button. It worked. I left the damned thing unlocked. If anyone really desperately needs to steal my Tempo, they're welcome to it. They'll also be quite capable of claiming insanity as a defense, and pleading sheer stunning stupidity. Of course, it hasn't gotten me off the hook yet, but I'll certainly hear them leaving if they try anything anyway.
So the good news is that we've had our little visit for a while now from the bad luck fairy (you know the one - black gorilla, pink tutu, yellow bunny slippers, white wings, and a little blue wand. Flaps around in a cloud of flies and whaps you on the head with the wand and leaves a mark the size of a meatball on your head). Let us hope that the damned thing is done with is for the remainder of the year. I've about had enough of him for a long, long while.
Oh, lovely. Guess who followed me to work today? Speak of the devil. That damned fairy. I'm trying to install a new toolset onto a clean computer for our developers. This is a toolset which is widely rumored to suck - mostly dead bunnies (the size of Godzilla) through a straw (the size of one of those coffee stirrers). If you can imagine the amount of suction force which would be required to move multiple tons of material through suck a small aperture, then you, too, might be able to be an instructor at the "Elephant and Mosquito Dating Service" for, as we all know, "with saliva and a great deal of patience, the elephant deflowered the mosquito" though I'm betting she was none too steady on her flight plan for the next couple months. Ahem.
Anyway, that "slick new toolset" we were supposed to approach with our eyes open and with unprejudiced thoughts is, frankly, a bit underwhelming. Well, if I can't get it to install, what would you call it? Of course, there is a chance it's the perfect program - it does nothing, and has no bugs to speak of.
Personally, I think the entire problem with software in general is that we have far too many smart people making it, and all the dumb ones are doing the testing. I think we really ought to swap that around. Remember, the computer is a box of sand and other cheap parts which only do exactly what you tell them. Unlike children. If you have a smart person telling an idiot what to do, you have plenty of needless direction going on. What we need is something much simpler.
Because if the idiots wrote the programs, we'd have our efforts properly aligned - dumb stuff to dumb stuff. Smart stuff working on smart stuff. And the like.
Of course, that means I could program... Which may well lead to yet another seal cracking on the apocalypse. You see, I've got to be careful. I'm married, I've got two kids... I'm running out of spare seals, and this is one of those things that's not likely to respond to duct tape.
I should have known today was going to be one of those days. This morning I was listening to someone on MPR read the story about the unfortunate individual who fell overboard from the Kitty Hawk. Unfortunately, she had her headphones on backwards, so she tried three times to turn "Hitty Kawk" into Kitty Hawk. Sheesh.
Almost as good a laugh as what some of you are pushing through my
search engine. Although the individual who looked for the phrase
"poopy orgasms" is hereby disinvited to stop coming by, if you don't
mind. We don't run that kind of a web site here. And you really, REALLY need
some help. Especially if you are the same fellow who searched for
"laxatives" and "Big Daddy Poop". That's right.
Say it with me now... EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...
Though the fellow who usually searches for "squish Bob Walder's Testicles" didn't do it last week - the search, I mean, not the squish... at least, I don't think they did the squish. I'd think Bob would have noted such a horrid event. Then again, I think I'm beginning to understand the application of the phrase "stiff upper lip".
Or, as my mom used to say, "if you can keep your head when all about you are losing there's, time to change medication." (actually she said "then you clearly don't understand the problem." Though I had a college prof who said "then you're management material". Gee. There's a collection I should bronze...
One more pimp session before I knock off for the night. If you live in the Twin Cities metro area and are using one of those useless national ISPs (other than AOHell, obviously), then please consider switching to Goldengate. They're my ISP, and a better bunch of fellas you'll never find. They got my e-mail inquiring about the status of my account the other day (you know, the one where I stayed logged in for nineteen straight hours in the land of the dialup? My local phone company's dropped this particular connection four times in the last forty minutes; of course when I don't want it to stay on, it's live for NINETEEN STRAIGHT HOURS... sheesh.
Anyway, if you want to get to a real ISP, contact Goldengate. Tell 'em I sent ya. They're on the ball all the time. They aren't the cheapest outfit around, but I've had only one time where I couldn't connect to them that it was their fault. No, I wasn't special; someone cut one of their incoming lines. And one problem in five years isn't anything to sneeze at.
Why do I pick on AOL? Well, we had a problem at work today. Our products rely very much on Microsoft Technology. Outlook, Internet Explorer, and the rest. Though we've done our best. If you aren't using Outlook, we'll just bypass it and we'll disable some features in our products. But if you're using that damned AOL Browser, do NOT waste our time by calling in and complaining. The really funny part is where the fellow asked for the head of the help desk, product support, product development, and the president of the company. He complained all the way up the food chain. And we got right on it. And it took about an hour to ask the key question - "What version of Explorer are you using?" "Oh, the AOL Browser? Well, OK. Don't use that - it doesn't work. At all.."
Sheesh. Again.
Well, back to "normal" tomorrow - we hope. I've got five computers to get configured for training next week; God willing they'll all cooperate. And the software, too, damnit. And there won't be big shots tomorrow. They will be around next week. And there's been the threat of "we'll need an inventory" thrown at me when the head cheeses left. Lovely. Some poor sap by the name of John Dominik who's going to have to get serial numbers off of every pair of speakers in the office, and anything valued over $0.99. Lovely. Oh well. The good news is that it's steady work...
Friday!, November 9, 2001
Who Gives a Rat's Ass?
At Minneapolis Children's Hospital, their neo-natal intensive care unit sees some of the smallest, most at-risk infants. When families anticipate a birth, sometimes this risk level is known and expected. I had a friend who spent much of her pregnancy on bed rest to keep the baby from wandering out prematurely.
At other times, the risks are unknown until it's too late - at least on the delivery end. My own son Jack is one of those. Jack was born five years ago next week. Three weeks premature. As I've learned, there is a stage in the seventh month of pregnancy which is actually pretty good for babies to be born - then they "backslide" if you will to a less viable state which then improves right through that nine-and-a-half-month deadline. This is all because of their lung development.
Jack was born at 6:30 pm on November 15. By 12:30 am - six hours later - He'd met his mother, father, and older sister (and future godmother), he'd been hauled around the hospital like a sack of potatoes, he'd been stuck by a number of needles, placed under heat lamps like a basket of french fries, ridden in an ambulance, and been stuck in the head with needles for an IV. He had also screamed the entire time - about six screams in four seconds, to give you a rough idea of frequency. By 3:30 am the next morning, or about nine hours into his brief life, he'd been placed on a respirator and into an oxygen tent, had been cuddled, and had pronounced "he'll make it."
The following week, where he stayed in various hospitals, was difficult for us. 1996 started snowy, and I believe not so coincidentally November 15th marked the beginning of the first rain/snow mix. By the time Jack came home from the hospital, we'd gone from brown grass to nine inches of snow on the ground. We had rain on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Some of it froze Thursday and Friday nights. We had snow Sunday. Monday. Wednesday. Friday. Saturday. Jack moved every single time we had snow.
And as some of you know, while it's a great comfort to be in the room next to your child, just watching them sleep, there's also an incredible amount of stress. You're thankful and ashamed at the same time that your child isn't like the one in the next pod over undergoing open heart surgery to plug a hole in the heart. You're thankful that your child is three times the size of some of the infants in there. You're thankful that your child isn't touch and go. And you're also a little ashamed to feel relief when there are people with a lifetime of struggles ahead because their child was so premature that they're still developing outside the womb, and they'll face a life of poor vision, learning disabilities, physical and mental problems, all because they came out early.
"Make it" was certainly true. Though there were times during those first eighteen months when "Moose" was more a wishful nickname than a true description. There were the days where Jack's occasional infant cough would develop into far more serious problems, and there were also days where we'd take him in for a "wheezing cough" which turned out to be nothing.
There were also days like the day I came home to get the diaper bag and found the other apartment building in my complex on fire. As in serious fire. As in six apartments destroyed so you could see sunlight through them, as in the entire building had to be emptied while it was rebuilt over six months.
There are times when I wonder about some of the other children who we met during our week waiting for Jack to "finish baking". There was the little baby in the bassinet across the pod from us - three months or more premature, parents were both teenagers, and they seemed to be doing OK. Or the little baby in the next pod who did undergo open heart surgery while we were watching Jack. Then there was the little boy in the bed next to Jack when we got back to Burnsville. That little boy had reconstructive surgery on his private parts because he was ... Well, let's just say he had a 90o bend pointing downwards when he went potty. And there were the triplets across the way.
And every year there are hundreds of children who pass through the Children's Hospitals here locally. Some are infants or young children too young to be aware of their surroundings. Some are old enough to be both aware of what's going on and scared about it. And some, those with chronic conditions, have spent far, far too much of their young lives in the hospital.
Those hours that people spend with their children in those hospitals can be long, painful, and draining. They can be horribly painful given the typically uncomfortable furniture most hospitals have. However, Minneapolis Children's has some very comfortable rockers and other chairs. Some of the parents of less affluent means receive chairs and other furniture from the hospital when they get home. Where does it come from? Generous donations from the Minnesota Twins organization, among others.
In these days, we have a pretty good grasp of heroism. We know that heros come in all shapes and sizes, and from all different fields. It's tough to look at someone who plays a game and call them a "hero" in the face of hijacked planes, falling buildings, and deadly envelopes. It's tough to look at someone who might make a hundred times more than you do annually and be inspired by them in the face of people who, daily, are in harms way through military action or in carrying out that action.
But there are also acts of kindness. Acts of caring that you might not otherwise expect. And Brad Radke (Twins pitcher) and his wife gave $30,000 in one donation (among many) to Minneapolis Children's. Other players adopt other causes, organizations, or groups. They help improve the communities they're in.
Well. Now that I've bored most of you to tears with the Baseball week from hell, let me tell you how my week ended. First of all, I've got to go to the building across the parking lot and do some careful checking of the occupants list. This morning I saw a cowboy, a clown, a "Landshark", a "Catwoman", something that appeared to be a sandwich, and a most definitely female M&M go into the building across the way. Either that or my medication needs to be adjusted.
Not as much as the skipping Mr. Beland, however. Then again, now that I've been initiated into the mysteries, I'll have to admit that the man has got to be at least a few bubbles off plumb just to handle the title he does. In my humble opinion, any title more than five words long is most likely been made up to make one's supervisors seem far, far more important than they really are. However, in Matt's case, they're not. Though I think they included planet and latitude and longitude in there just for fun, myself...
But the real work today came at 4:15 pm. Next week there will be eight of us learning how to use a "new" tool. The "new" is in quotes, as it's "new to us". The reason it's in quotes otherwise is because the tool is in fact two or three years old, and is, at best, a step backwards in how we develop. However, our organization has a problem. In an acquisition binge which ended with us two years ago, they acquired a number of "development labs" around the country. Some have been consolidated, others (like us) have been left to do what's needed to keep things going and work on a single product.
Of all the analogies I've heard this week, none are as effective as the first one that popped into my head. We develop a number of software products across our company. Some have large teams, others (like ours) have small teams. In many ways, it's like bowling. The only difference is that instead of using the good old twelve-pound ball to knock down the pins, you've got some softballs, some baseballs, and some marbles. Eventually, you can knock down a bowling pin with a marble. Of course, a lot of that depends on how fast the marble's moving down the lane, and where it hits the pin.
But the idea in bowling is to bowl strikes. Our director figured this out and decided to get everyone on the same page by taking a step back and using this tool set. It will also allow us to re-build our other software and make it more tightly integrated into our other products.
What does this have to do with next week? Well, we've got eight people who are coming in for training. Five from our office, one fellow who moved here from Indianapolis and wants to start coming to the office (he's got a seven-month-old baby at home. I understand completely why he wants to get out on occasion), one from the Netherlands, and the trainer.
Now our conference room is quite often crowded with eight people in it. Add to those eight people eight computers and you've got one heck of a mess - especially since five of those eight machines will be desktop, and not laptop, machines.
So tonight, at 4:15, after shooting down the idea late Thursday AND early Friday, my boss says "you know what? Maybe we should have re-arranged the room." Right. Thanks. Too late for that. I've got two hubs (one below the table, the other above). I've got 25 electrical outlets (a couple of outlet strips, some six-plug, some eight, some plugging into each other, some above, and some below the table). I've got the projector set on top of a CPU tower to allow it to shoot over the top of the monitors we're going to be using and avoid "keystoning" the image (where the top of the image is wider than the bottom).
Well, tough. We'll rearrange Monday if need be.
Came home, did nine loads of wash and was fortunate that the four dryers I picked were all working and I only did nine loads of dry, too (yes, I remembered to pull out the jeans and the towels, as well). I think it's time I go to bed. Tomorrow, we will most likely go paint a house. Not ours, but a friend's. G'nite.
Saturday, November 10, 2001
Nope. No baseball today. I promise.
We've had a change of plans for the whole weekend, apparently. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we won't be going to St. Cloud today, unless we get a phone call. In which case we'll have to run really, really fast.
I suppose I should note that today is the second-last binary day for a few years. 11-10-01 (or 10-11-01, if you're European). Whee.
<My God. Is he really this much of a geek?! Binary indeed. I'm getting him a pocket protector for Christmas.-AD> <What? Hey, he does it to ME.>
And as you can see, the above is why I rarely leave my computer.
Other than that, we've had a long, difficult morning, which seems to be topped off by eldest child being completely inanimate when it comes to putting away her clothes. Please tell me that eight year olds are normally able to hang up three things in less than a half-hour. Though I suppose motion's required. I don't think she's moved the entire half-hour.
Jack, of course, after destroying the living room (in the house, when we move, Rule #1 is that any toys brought into the living room, go out by your own hand or into my trash can. It's a simple rule we'll try to live by), was assigned the "under the table" duty. Typically light work, unless one happens to stand up. Being that your average table top is 28" or thereabouts, it doesn't take much in the growth department before you've cleared that limit - especially since the table top itself is an inch and a quarter thick, which leaves you about twenty-six and three-quarter inches. When you were born at 20 1/2 and you're nearly five, standing under a table is just not the brightest move in the world.
And then Rhiannon comes out. "I'm out of hangers!" Gee. I see four on the hamper. "But I'm going to run out!" Have you tried hanging up what you've got? Perhaps doubling up? Pants, shirt, and sweatshirt on the same hanger, to make a complete outfit? "No, that would be stupid." But of course. How silly of me. Sheesh.
Later: (tho not really though - I hadn't uploaded it yet). I swear, I'm channeling Phil Hough. Nothing much going on, did a bit of cleaning, then out to the craft store, where the "give away bags" for the next child birthday party will consist of hats. That's right. Hats. We'll write their names on the hats, and have pens so the kids can decorate them. Couple years back we did it for a play date - Rhiannon had some friends come by with their Easy-Bake ovens, and we did the trick with aprons.
Then we stopped at the Grocery store. Well, two stops, since Ann decided we needed to have some sort of three-bean combo (Lord help them who attend 11 am mass tomorrow morning - since Rhiannon hates beans, there will be three of four who will be causing problems for those who prefer a methane-and-trace-gas-free environment), and Cub had two of the three beans we wanted. So we stopped at Cub first, and I must admit, I'm a happy camper.
Some of you might remember the old Nabisco "Mystic Mint" cookies. Essentially Oreos with mint flavoring, covered in chocolate. I haven't been able to find them for five years or more now, and I'd given up. But there, in the middle of the aisle, was a huge display of white fudge, chocolate fudge, and chocolate fudge with mint filling Oreos. There goes the weight loss...
Of course, after two stops at two different grocery stores, Ann decided to take a refrigerator census. Most folks would call it an "inventory and cleanout" but I prefer to call it a census. After all, those guests we've raised from food products to near sentience in our fridge deserve some form of respect - even though we eventually flushed their fuzzy little brains right down the disposal. After the flame-thrower method of cleaning the fridge out, I was a bit disappointed not to be greeted by the chorus of little voices that I used to get when opening the fridge. Oh well. Your sympathies preferred to the usual place - we'll erect a memorial later at the usual place.
After all of that, tonight's dinner was the "Blue Plate Special" - Cheddar Melts, Beer-battered onion rings, Baked Beans with three different beans (alas, no kidney, my personal fave (and most productive of the bunch), which is perhaps good news for those poor folks in church tomorrow), and milkshakes. All from the low-fat cookbook. Yum. Then we'll settle down for a couple of movies. Or just pick lint, I dunno.
As I'm feeling extraordinarily tired (must be the beer - she needed a third-cup of beer. Dunno how many it turned into... ;-), I'm going to call it a night before I launch into my dissertation on sock and underwear organization... G'nite.
Sunday, November 11, 2001
In 1980, I was sitting in the "Band Room" in the now-razed North Building of my high school. I was working on some homework... Well, all right, I was sitting there, avoiding working on homework and probably shooting the breeze with some friends. The band director stuck his head in.
"Dominik - Get into the uniform room, grab a uniform."
"Why?"
"It's veteran's day, and I forgot we're supplying the drummer for the parade."
"Huh?"
"Get moving." He disappeared. I had to duck into the uniform room, where we kept our high school marching uniforms. I grabbed a hopefully clean suit-coat and pants combo, an overlay, a hat (we wore these fourteen-inch high fur-covered plastic domes which were hotter than blazes during the summer. Did I mention that the coat, the hat, and the pants were all black? Only the overlay was white and gold). I scrounged around in the spare shoe pile, found a pair that was close to my size (I think they were about three sizes too large - beats heck out of the alternative), and a pair of spats (yes, spats. Ick). Ducked into a practice room, started to change, then came back out half-way through.
Couldn't find the band director, which was a bright royal pain - I couldn't harness up until I knew which drum I'd be carrying. This was back in the old days when you hung forty or more pounds from your anatomy via (if you were lucky) a two-inch-wide strap. If you were unlucky, as I was that day, you wore a contraption which, now that I think about it, looked a lot like a bra, backwards, and held the sixty-pound bass drum.
The band director returned with another drummer; fortunately, one of the best snare drummers we had, and "Lurch" and I went into the band room (during choir practice), grabbed a couple of drums and other necessary tools, (like sticks and the like) and hopped into the band director's AMC Pacer. We roared across town to the Armory, and from there to a parking lot in front of a refrigerator factory - this was where we typically lined up for our Memorial Day parade, the first of our summer marching season.
Unfortunately, on that day, summer was quite a long ways away. We lined up, Ron and I, in forty-degree and rainy weather. We set up right behind a couple of older guys carrying flags and a rather old-looking rifle.
We set up, and talked a little about what we'd do. Since we had only one snare, one bass, there was little point in doing formal cadences (we knew them inside out, backwards, forwards, and the like - Ron had been playing them since the old "Dumb and Bungle Bugle Corps disbanded, while I had finished my third year of summer marching - the first on the triples, or tri-toms).
We started out with me keeping a basic four-beat tempo, and Ron improvising around it. After a bit, my fingers reached the point where I couldn't feel them any more - partially because my straps had rolled up and were pinching, and partially due to the cold.
After walking roughly a mile and a half, from the parking lot of the factory, down the street, around a corner, up a rather busy four-lane street (they'd graciously blocked off one lane of the road; we weren't a big enough parade to expect the whole road to close), we walked onto the grounds of the VA building in St. Cloud. The cold rain had numbed my hands, and unfortunately, due to the inability to find the wooden bass-drum beaters, I'd been stuck with the pressed-felt variety. Those had grown heavier and required more force to produce the same sound - and my fingers weren't in summer marching shape - I had blisters on my forefingers, the heels of my hands, and the knuckles of the first two fingers on each hand had split from the skin vibrating on the drum heads.
The drum heads weren't stained, due to the rain and the smooth plastic surface. But my hands were a mess for about two weeks after that.
In the twenty-one years since, Veteran's day has usually reminded me of that. Sometimes, on days like today, when the day dawns unseasonably warm, clear, and bright, it seems a million miles away. Other days, it's right there. I can still feel the stiffness in my hands from that day, though much of it's imagined, I'm sure.
But I think of the six older fellows marching in front of us carrying heavy cotton flags, soaked through with rain, and their rifles and the like. It seemed a simple, minor, pathetic sacrifice when compared to the sacrifices our Veterans gave for us.
Eighty three years ago, The War To End All Wars ended in a much different world than it started. A shot by a rag-tag terrorist killed a little-known royal figure, relatively minor in the overall scheme of things. However, the secret alliances between the various European governments led quickly to the horrors of trench warfare. That war brought wide-spread use of the machine gun, the introduction of aerial warfare, chemical weapons, and the invention of the Tank. It also became the proximate cause of many of the wars of the twentieth century due to the peace settlement imposed upon Germany, the destruction of the Russian Monarchy, the rise of Communism, World War II, and the Cold War.
On this Veterans day, we're a bit more aware of those armed forces we honor. Many are actively engaged in the war in Afghanistan, avenging the deaths which occurred two months ago today in New York and Washington.
Through much of American history, we've been fortunate in that wars have not been fought here. The deaths that had occurred on our soil hadn't come at the hands of a foreign power; they came either from our own Civil War or from our own criminal violence.
September 11 changed all of that. The war came home. Violence came home. The destruction of the World Trade Center Towers and the horrible loss of life there and at the Pentagon taught us that the twenty-first century would not be a continuation of "life as usual".
Regrettably, the perpetrators of this violence chose to cloak themselves in stolen religious fervor, misguided, misunderstood, and misdirected understandings of what they thought they believed, and in turn, sullying and endangering hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world.
Terrorists hide within the population, claiming to espouse and support that population, all the while perverting the population's stated goal. In this particular case, the Taliban, who are themselves more than a little misguided, are sheltering bin Laden, who is, to be blunt, so far off the map of sanity so as to be "full-basket whacked."
This time, it's different. There are no "front lines" and no "safe areas". Danger comes from the skies as much as it does from the mailbox. Danger comes from fear, from hiding.
And in this particular situation, danger also comes from an attorney general who has failed to understand that his job is to uphold the constitution, and instead has chosen to defend the country at the expense of the principles on which that country was founded. Veterans fought and died to preserve the United States, which is, after all, a loose collection of ideas. Veterans fought, and died, to allow Mr. Ashcroft to pervert the legal system and do things like violate a defendant's right to privacy, and the right against self-incrimination.
Our veterans fought to preserve a nation that believed, and still believes, innocent until proven guilty. Not "innocent until born somewhere else, and then you're completely, utterly, totally screwed."
On this Veterans day, thank those who've fought the good fight, given the ultimate sacrifice, or just plain served their hitch. They didn't know that Ashcroft and his twenty-first century gestapo stood behind the curtains, awaiting only an horrific act to tear the constitution in bits and do what they would to protect the country.
One question keeps running through my head, though - if the Constitution means nothing to the man who is responsible for insuring that it's being properly enforced, then what should it mean to the rest of us?
Well, this has been the lost weekend from ... Oh, I dunno. Middle of nowhere?
We had the opportunity to go see a friend of mine and his band play in New Prague (a small town just a wee bit south of here) Saturday night. Due to foreseen circumstances (normally, they're unforeseen, but I should have known better), Saturday's "paint 'til you drop" day was postponed until most likely a very cold day in a warm place. Our quick-shift change in plans failed to materialize, primarily due to the absolute dearth of baby-sitter-capable material (no, you can't just toss one in the oven and have it ready to go in 30 minutes), we ended up stuck at home. So Dewey, sorry about that - we WILL hear that band of yours play. I still remember (and probably have) that damned list of songs we were going to learn all those many years ago in someone kitchen - damned near had it memorized, as every time I thought I had the list done, someone would deliver a late update with three more songs - then I'd recopy the list twice - once alpha by song, and once alpha by band. Is it any wonder why I love computers? Though I'm sure the music world has most capably recovered from my threats to either play drums or keyboards (I can play three songs on the piano. One is the Entertainer, by Scott Joplin, one is (or was) the Hill Street Blues theme, and the other's not. No, seriously, it might well be One Tin Soldier. Then again, it could be Stairway to Heaven. Hell, it's been so long since I touched a keyboard that wasn't connected to a computer that I'd probably destroy all of the above).
Thus the short, boring evening of yesterday. Today promised to be
another day. Yet, as most of you know by now, what gets promised to me and
what actually pays out is two vastly different things. Yes. I am an
abused husband, but only 50% of the abuse comes from my lovely bride.
Fully 50% comes from my children, and the other 300% from the world around
me. What? I never said I was a math major... 
Today dawned way too late for some things, too bloody early for others. Up at 10:15 am, we somehow managed, despite the queen of Putz's best efforts, to make it to 11 am mass, around here otherwise known as "The Maniacal Music Director Works Out The Kinks Prior To His Album Recording Sessions And World Stadium Tour." It's a mouthful, but consider the alternative. "Psycho Man Who Abuses Livestock" is already taken, as is "Alice Cooper of Religious Music". I won't name names, though, to protect the livestock, mostly.
Back to Church. This week's seats, back in the "overflow" area (in our parish, more officially known as the "Holy Family Chapel", or commonly "the kid's lunchroom during church") allowed us to get a good look at the fellow who has turned Sunday Morning Worship at 11 into a freaking circus sideshow. And despite my wide experience and range of vocabulary, the bottom line is that I just haven't ever encountered someone like this fellow. He's got a fair amount of mustache, almost Saddam Hussein-like. He's got round John Lennon glasses. And his hair is ... Well, the term "comb over" isn't nearly adequate for the flap this fellow's cultivated - clear down past his jaw on his port side.
I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons that this fellow's fallen into the career path he has. I've got equal reasons for my own slow slide into the gory world of computing. So I'd better not speculate. Some of the reasons still have statutes of limitations attached, if you will.
And he's also the fellow (apparently) who believes volume covers a multitude of sins. Though I have to confess, their last number (no, it wasn't conducive to meditative thought at all) at Communion today was ... rather surprising. They played some version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which seemed a medley of different styles. At the end of it, the rest of us had no choice but to applaud. It was appropriate to the day, but certainly not to the timing in the service.
Oh well. 'nuff about that.
After church, we had the usual "Fellowship Sunday" - in the Dominik Hovel, otherwise known as "Donut Sunday." Apparently, we were not suitably punished yet, so we also had to order poinsettas (Your guess is as good as mine as to which pronounciation is more appropriate, I alternate) from the youth group. Apparently they want to go to Rome in two years, so they're selling plants. They're also selling pancake breakfast tickets, and by the time it's over, probably organs as well. Hmmm... I think I'll avoid the church bathrooms just in case I wake up in a strange hotel room in a tub full of ice.
Anyway, after that, we came home to lunch, and more torture - it was one of those Sundays that appears on the radar twice per football season - Bears and Packers played one another, and regrettably the Pack won. Then, of course, we went to the YMCA, and worked out. Oddly enough, we've found an even more impressive way to add to the sheer torture of working out. On the televisions above the equipment, they had apparently hoped to show the Eagles/Vikings professional football game. Unfortunately, what ended up getting run wasn't a football game so much as multiple different views, from many different angles, of the same play, over and over and over again, where the Vikings take the snap from center, turn around, balance the ball on their helmets, grab various body parts, and proceed to commit various violations of common decency. Well, what would you call it? I haven't seen anything as disgusting since I broke up a circle jerk at summer camp one year. I guess it could have been worse. I only interrupted a bunch of squirrels, but these were grown men.
Oh, lovely. Now the nightly news is threatening that the professional football team could relocate as well. I think they've got that wrong. The professionals have already relocated. They're just looking for them now to see if they can build another team or something like that.
Well, I've got dinner to put away, a kitchen to reclaim (or at the very least, battle to a draw) so I'd best get to it. This coming week I'm stuck in training on a product I know nothing about and have just slightly less interest in (training on new technology/software I'd be excited about. Training on a product which is four years old and promises to be six steps backwards in the way we do things? Well, since I know nothing about how we do them now, I'm going through the training. Don't know if I'm trainable, but that's why we do these silly things - find out if that's possible). More than likely this means I'm going to be pretty short for the first part of the week. Post-wise, content-wise, that is.
Have a fun Monday, and remember - OFIM, indeed... G'nite.
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