Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Whirlwind

Lots of goings on these last few days. In a span of about 40 hours, Danny and I both found jobs, a noonball game, and a team for a basketball league that starts next month. After resigning myself to the fact that I would almost certainly be making the trek into Kansas City every day in order to get a decent "big kids' job" I found one here in town that suits me better, pays more, and is a much, much, much shorter commute than the other opportunities I had. So I am certainly thankful for that. And, in an ironic twist of fate, the company I will be working at resides between the 400 and 500 block of Gateway Drive. What was the address of Culligan Manor back in G.F.???? 416 Gateway Drive. It was meant to be. So anyways, I suppose the days of playing Madden, swimming, and dunking on a small plastic hoop in our living room while listening to the Karate Kid soundtrack are just about over. It was a good run, but it will be nice to get back to working again.

It was also a fantastic sports weekend for this guy as well, between Phil finally nailing down a tournament when Tiger was in contention, and of course the no-no that Clay Bucholz threw on Saturday. French has already done a wonderful job in painting a rosy picture entitled "The Red Sox Future" so I will not belabor that point any longer. Instead, I will take this opportunity to do something I do very well: complain about my bad luck. Since I don't get to watch Sox games unless they are on ESPN, I am a giant fan of GameCast. Especially these last couple weeks, when I have had less to do (see preceding paragraph), basically, if a computer is within my reach, then I am at least tracking the Sox game on GameCast. Due to golfing in the afternoon, then going straight out to eat and then to the bars, Saturday's game was the first game in weeks that I had no clue about....until Lane called to congratulate me. This is not the way you want to hear about something of this magnitude, especially considering the way both Lane and Dunph completely and totally jinxed the Twins' near-perfect game on Friday night. Now, you might be leaning back and saying to yourself or to whomever you may be reading this with, perhaps a loved one, "Wow. Big deal. Quit complaining, you gigantic homo." To which I would reply, "F you. When every possible small break you encounter every day continually bounces the other way, see how pessimistic you become." After seeing numerous everyday examples first-hand, Jon-Jon knows all about this phenomenon. I think at this point we need to come up with a term for it. It might make me feel better.

One thing that does make me feel better, that I just touched on in the last paragraph, was the Twins/Royals game last Friday. In about the 7th or 8th inning, Danny's brother David, who was at the game, called to let us know that Baker had a perfect game going. Good to hear. Then, as the 9th was about to start, Dunph calls. "Watching the Twins game?" We are now. I put the phone down, and not 15 seconds later it rings again. Lane this time. After getting off the phone with Lane, Danny and I look at each other and laugh. Everyone who has ever watched a single baseball game in their life knows what's coming next. First batter of the inning: 5 pitch walk. Goodbye perfect game. Two batters later: pinch-hit single. Goodbye no-no. Good times. Gooood times.

NFL preview coming soon...