Published writer, compulsive reader, Old School Whovian, Match Game enthusiast, NKOTB fan, data hoarder, and - surprisingly, given that list - married with four kids.
Welcome to my take on life, fatherhood, entertainment, and whatever strikes my fancy.
Enjoy!
I warn you: this is not for sensistive ears and not for kids.
This is a link to a document offered by an auction house (Robert Edwards). It's an official 1898 Major League Baseball document warning players to clean up their speech on the field and listing - in plain blue language - examples of it's abuse.
"You ***** eating b*****d"
"Go **** yourself"
"I'll make you suck your ***"
"A dog must have ****** your mother when she made you"
etc.
The document purports that such language was openly and intentionally spoken within the earshot of ladies in the stands.
The words comes as no real suprise to me given the rough and tumble nature of baseball at the close of the 19th century (McGraw's Orioles anyone?) but it's shocking that the league would put such things in print.
Even they must have known it was a shocker: the bottom of the document reads "Unmailable - must be forwarded by express"
Without question today's Packer victory was one of the most memorable Packer games I've ever seen.
It starts off on a clean field free of snow.
It starts with Ryan Grant, the Pack's running back, fumbling twice.
It starts with Seattle scoring a TD off of each fumble.
Then, so unlike the Favre of ten or even five years ago, the old man approached a14-0 deficit with the calm of a seasoned Zen master.
And so . .
It ends in a blizzard with the field covered in slush.
It ends with that very same Ryan Grant rushing for 201 yars and 3 TD's.
It ends with Seattle flying home with yet another road playoff defeat.
Man, it was great.
Two wonderful images: Brett Favre tossing a snowball on the field and Holmgren and Hassleback losing their cool to the officials over perceived 'holds'.
And a great play: Favre nearly sacked on a 3rd and 6, leaving the pocket and stumbling, barely able to keep his balance. Right before it seems like he'll fall over he tosses a quick little shovel pass for the 1st down. How great was it to see his own joy over the play!
A thing of beauty - if it's on YouTube I'll post it here. Update: here ya go!
And now, the first NFC Championship game for the Pack in ten years!
* * * *
I picked up an incredibly obnoxious 56" flatscreen HDTV in December (2nd hand) and while I regretted the purchase for a few days, I've grown to love the thing with all my dear little heart. The wife hates it - to be sure, it is too large for our smallish living room and clashes with the decor - but ah, the view!
Note the "we've got jobs at the supermarket" episode of the Suite Life of Zack and Cody. We continue to measure time here in 'Zack and Cody's'.
A half hour wait is one 'Zack and Cody' whereas if it's two hours until bedtime it's 'four Zack and Cody's'.
Not a bad show by the way. I enjoy it. Beef it up a bit to be less Gilligan's Island-ish and it could run on network TV, IMHO.
Love 'The Meanager' nickname for Mr. Moseby, the hotel manager.
* * * *
Quote of the Day: LuLu and Smiley watched some of the game with me, with Lu asking some questions, probably more because she was bored than actually interested.
When the usual Fox graphics appeared she momentarily wigged out.
"I'm scared of foxes!" she said.
A) no she's not, far as I know and B) I think it was all a plain acting job designed for her to look cute.
It worked :)
* * *
I gave the kids a good dinner tonight and I am overly proud. Baked all-white chicken nuggetts and fries, not the healthiest granted, but a side salad , glass of milk, and a clementine too.
[I even got them to brush their teeth, which Lu hates. (tho' she's never had a cavity, and brushing fan YaYa's had a few]
Lu loves salad, and always has, so that's no big deal. Smiley's picking up the habit, and good for him.
From Day One Lisa always said that even if we adults eat pure cra* the kids should have a vegetable and fruit at every single meal. (with veggies NOT being defined as corn or peas). Even our McDonald's Happy Meals are ordered with Apple Dippers in place of fries 90% of the time.
Our private quote: "if they wanna be fat, they can do it on their own after 18, but not on our watch"
* * * *
A little alarmed today: I received a big notice from my student loan saying I would soon (and I mean VERY soon) be in default because I 'failed' to provide requested income data.
A) I signed a form allowing them to pull the info from the IRS months back, only to have them claim the IRS was unable to find records. Last I checked I'm not a migrant worker and my checks are gouged by the government, so there should be records. But .
B) in response I signed, and my wife co-signed, another document purporting to fufill this requirement. For whatever reason, despite the fact I personally stamped and mailed this, they are acting like I've been dodging them.
All this is crazy, as a payment isn't even DUE, much less defaulted on, but allegedly I get this 3rd round of paperwork in their hands by next week or cut them a check for roughly 1/3 the total cost of my home.
Note they only pull sh(t like this around the time of your income tax, so they can make you dance and sully yourself in fear of having that return garnished . .
Ugh. Life is hard.
* * *
My first documented attempt to better myself and keep my 2008 resolutions: I was a pure ass to the deli counter guy this past Thursday. I mean, I wasn't overtly mean, but I had an edge about me and I gave him a glare or two and walked away feeling a little dirty.
So today I took LuLu there [pardon the interruption, but it wassample day: she got ice cream, chocolate milk, granola bars, and pizza. Saved me from buying her lunch]. I went up to the deli counter and apologized, half thinking he wouldn't even remember me.
Well, I must have made quite the impression because he cheerfully wrote off part of my actions on account of 'work calling you a few times while you were ordering."
You know what? Until that moment I didn't even remember that work had called me.
How big of an ass had I been for him to remember that?
But at least I made the effort to make amends and my conscience is clear.
The 2008 Hall of Fame results came out last week, and it's a mixed bag for me. The writers kept with the 'small Hall' concept by electing only Goose Gossage, but they also snubbed my candidates while nearly enshrining Rice and Dawson.
Here's the complete results:
2008 Election
543 ballots cast, 408 votes needed for election.
Players must receive 75.0% of the vote or higher to be elected.
Having grown up in the '80's and converted to fandom in '91-92, I have no built in bias against 'failed starters', aka relief pitchers. So I'm fine with Gossage, but that 43% of the vote for Lee Smith floors me. The man held the all-time saves record for a minute and even then wasn't considered a dominant closer. That and the votes for the ever-bitter Jack Morris are a waste of time and resources. Spread the votes elsewhere.
{memo to all ex-players who spend eons fighting to get in the Hall. A) if it's that all-consuming to you, maybe you should get a life and B) if you have to fight that hard for enshrinement, chances are you don't belong there in the first place}
Rice and Dawson seem a sure bet to get in next year. They aren't the smartest choices for the Hall but they're not the worst of all time. It never hurts to have a 'name' player in the Hall I guess.
[I still hope Rickey Henderson goes in solo next year]
Meanwhile Trammell, Raines, and McGwire got no love from the writers. What a world.
* * * *
RE: Clemens . . guilty. Shut up and take the heat. Quit trying to bully the witness into submission with your money and your rep.
* * * *
The Brewers have signed Mike Cameron to play in center. Cameron, a solid glove and decent bat, should be a decent addition to the Miller Park outfield (once he gets past a mandatory 25 game drug suspension to open the year).
That will probably move Bill Hall to third and Ryan Braun to left and give the Brewers an average defense across the board - which with their bats should be a great advantage.
That said, if I was Bill Hall I'd be steaming mad. He's been shuffled around more than a deck of cards in a casino. Always the team player, he's done it without (publicly) complaining . . but does he have any love left for the organization at all?
* * *
Oh man, this next thing reeks of my Dad's quirky stat-geekiness, BUT . . . I'd like to start following Asian baseball (Japan/Korea/Taiwan) hard core this year, at least to the point where I know the stars and what teams are kicking butt.
[great article on the myth of Japanese stadiums being bandboxes: read ithere]
Unrelated to my interest but of note anyway, former Brewers manager Jerry Royster is now the first foreign born manager of a Korean team. Read about it here.
When I was a kid my Mom bought a copy of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days. I never read past the introduction, but something Keillor wrote made an impression on me. He once lost a briefcase full of stories and ideas, never to be seen again, and no matter how he tried he could never reproduce them.
The idea horrified me - after all, I still have some of my own kindergarten worksheets. But sometime in the last five years I suffered the same disaster. Many of my columns on the 2000 election and the events of 9/11 are gone, goodness knows where, lost in one of our moves.
Maybe they were junk better left unread, but I think there’s one post 9/11 piece in particular that deserved to see the light of day.
The point of all this is that I once had a column that explained exactly what I’m going to try to say again today. Maybe I did it better five years ago, maybe not. But hopefully it explains one of my wife’s mythical “Four Statements that Would Cause my Friends to Hate You”.
This one came when she asked who I liked for the election in November.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll vote for whoever has a (R) next to their name. I always vote a straight ticket.”
Yes, Virginia, it’s true. Whenever possible, and without the slightest hesitation, I vote a straight Republican ticket.
Exceptions? Sure. Milwaukee’s a Democratic stronghold and sometimes, unless I want to sit home, I have to choose between Democrat A and Democrat B. There’s also plenty of unchallenged, one candidate races. I can’t leave it blank, so booyah, there’s my vote.
And yes, if a legitimate kook - not as defined by the liberals or mainstream media but a God’s honest sociopath – was in the running, I’d vote the other way. Ditto for a few personalities; I’d have passed on Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan.
You see, it’s not about some blind allegiance or absolute faith in a platform, it’s about the practical application of political power and the defense of your rights. I learned this lesson from watching the Florida debacle of ’00.
Put aside your personal view of who won/lost Florida, who you yourself voted for, or any emotions about the chaos at the tail end of ’00. What’s relevant to this discussion is the fact that at every turn, at each and every pivotal moment of that month-long argument, it wasmembers of the party, in most cases very minor figures, who safeguarded your rights.
The idea worked for both parties: certainly low-level Democrats were instrumental in announcing the existence of what they believed to be vote count errors, they pushed ahead with numerous recounts (above and beyond what I viewed as reasonable or legal) and taking the long view each and every Florida Supreme Court judge, instrumental in the case, had been appointed by a Democrat. Because those mechanisms were in place defeat was forestalled by more than a month.
[From my personal point-of view these were attacks not only on the validity of the 2000 election, but a dangerous attempt to pre-empt the democratic process. I remember seeing it as a slippery slope that, regardless of the outcome, would lead to years of dissension, mistrust, and bitter and irrational hatred of the winning administration.
Thank heavens that prediction didn’t come to pass, eh?]
On the other side of the coin it was low level Republicans who fought tooth and nail to thwart what they saw as an attack on the electoral college, the voting public, and George W Bush.
(You don’t think a State Secretary of State is a minor position? Go ahead – name the one in your state. Thought so.)
It was a former Republican Cabinet member who led the legal fight, and a Supreme Court largely appointed by Republican’s who ended the madness.
Without those minor players in Florida the Democrats would have steamrolled recount after recount until the outcome matched what they wanted because with emotions running high, their belief in their Gore’s victory absolute and no one to raise a red flag and stop them, why wouldn’t they?
To me, saying ‘X’ or “Y’ office is a throwaway, something that isn’t worth fighting for or defending, is madness. It’s akin to walking into court without a lawyer, taking a road trip without your mobile phone, or willingly dismissing your constitutional rights.
At the risk of sounding like someone who watched Red Dawn once too often, at some point in the future everything will once again depend on having allies in place. When that moment comes, you better hope they’re there waiting.
Concerned that a straight ticket leaves no wiggle room, no means of checks and balances against producing stagnant or poor leadership? Then get involved in the party. Make sure it understands your views and what’s important to you, and keep it centered -but fluid and willing to change.
Don’t like a candidate? Then fight tooth and nail against him in the primary – that’s what the process is for isn’t it?
Squeamish at the idea of a one-party monopoly? You should be - but it will never come to pass. Lean too far to one party and the country reflexively moves the other way. There will always be members of the other party in office, and that’s good – competition is healthy.
So most of the time I vote for the person with an (R) next to their name. Maybe my wife’s right and that will cost us some friends.
Then again, I have a buddy who would rather vote for the corpse of Lenin than any Republican, the Socialist pig, and neither of our stances has hurt our friendship.
Today was an odd day. There were intense thunderstorms all day and a big scheduling conflict. LuLu was due at dance class in the boonies at 5:15, while YaYa had an audition workshop for Fiddler on the Roof at just about the same time.
I dropped Lis and YaYa off in the midst of a severe hailstorm then headed out through the occasional flooded street to dance class.
While Lu was dancing Smiley, Lauren and I hung out in the van, listening to a kids tape and whiling away the hour.
The only problem - when dance class ended, the car wouldn't start. I'd left the key in 'on' and wore out the battery. Dumb.
Of course the kids started to wig out and no one in the parking lot had jumper cables. You'd have thougth I was asking for a handout with the way people avoided eye contact. Yikes. Finally one woman, the previously unknown Betsy, offered a jump.
Slight comedic moment: for some reason her hood didn't have a pole to prop it up, and she was very worried the jump would prove disasterous because of this.
So here I am with the hood propped by hand, screaming kids in the van, the only light my 'low battery' phone, and a drizzle coming down.
And the phone WOULD NOT STOP RINGING. It rang 3 or 4 times as I was hooking up the cables.
"Just don't answer it!," she said annoyed.
"I can't," I said, "I have another kid waiting on X Street" I said, with X being the not so great area where the theater was located.
So the jump works and she says "God Bless You Dan!"
"Bless me? You're the Good Samaritan, you're the one who stopped to help me, not the other way around," I said.
Seems like she was so concerned about the jump going haywire that the sucess was as much a victory for her as for me.
* * *
Lu, btw, performed admirably in her class. Smiley and I caught a glimpse of her. When her class was dismissed he gave her a sincere round of applause.
Oh, he also said 'van' today - clear as day and more than once.
YaYa came back with a dance routine to get down and some lyrics to learn. The audition is later this week. Wish her luck!
* * *
P*** on Ohio State for losing another championship game. Suck it up and don't make a fool of yourself on national TV. You represent the Big Ten, you &%^(*.
As 2007 dawned our new house was a mess. The contractors had begun demolishing the only existing (and water damaged) bedroom on the second floor after Christmas, but much of the work throughout the house was on hold until we removed the accumulation of personal effects and furnishings left behind by the previous owner.
In this, the last few months before the discovery of Craigslist, I had no outlet to get rid of the hundreds of 1980's era Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Time, and other mags that were boxed throughout the house.
I ignored Lisa's pleas to throw them out and instead spent New Years Day 2007 hauling them to Half Price Books to sell. The price quoted me? Nada. Not one slim dime. So I loaded them all back up, took 'em to the house . . and then out to the garbage.
Meanwhile Lisa and I had switched off spending evenings at the house, trying to sort through the mess. I'd been so gung ho for the junk before the sale, as if it was an elaborately expensive rummage sale. I had my eyes on a few Time Life WWII books, a few art books, an old push mower in the basement, etc. etc.
Then I bought the place and every item was just one more thing to move and dispose of, and Time Life be damned. Oh, and the lawn mower? It disintegrated in my hands when I tried to move it, just plain rusted through and through.
Sometimes my Dad helped, sometimes my sister Katie, and once my friend Tre. You never spent the evening there/here alone at the time. It was just too dang creepy to do that - dim light from spastic light fixtures, whistling wind through the windows stuck that were stuck inches open, the all-encompassing smell of decay and neglect and abandonment.
[True story: with my sister Katie with me at the house we heard a door slam shut upstairs. Remember, we both heard it, and it was a clear and distinct sound, not something that could be mistaken for any other. The problem? The only two doors still hanging in the house were the front door a few feet away and the back door, visible to me from where I stood. My sister shrieked and I myself was in no hurry to stay]
I think it was Lisa who eventually got most of the kitchen lineoleum up.
That exposed some heavy water damage from where the ice box - no,not a fridge - had once stood.
My Dad and I removed the threadbare wall-to-wall carpeting in the dining room. I mean 'threadbare' literally - the first time in my life I saw a carpet so thin it was sheer. And the dust from the decayed padding . .
Anhow, to continue with New Years Day 2007. The whole family bucked up and attacked the mess. What follows are some of the most famous photos in the Slapinions arsenal.
Here's YaYa prepping for the cleanup:
And little LuLu bravely carrying chunk after chunk of linoleum to the garbage pile.
Note the huge size of the pile, which was only to grow. On the 16th of Jan, despite having a standing order for a special pickup that the city never bothered filling, we were cited by Milwaukee and had the contractors spend a day hauling it to the dump. By then it included many more items and some mattresses some jerk had randomly dumped on the pile.
Smiley couldn't do much, but he was Smiley :)
At some point I'd picked up our friend Chris and her kids (Faith accompanied me to the bookstore) and together we shared our first meal in our new home.
True, Little Ceasars (or as the family calls it, 'Pizza Pizza!') is nothing special, but I didn't touch a slice.
Confession: I was still grossed out by the house and couldn't fathom eating there/here.
Man, it seemed like it could never be our home . .
Here's two pictures of the girls as they appeared for the Christmas concert at their school. Maybe I mentioned it before, but I saw the rehearsal, whereas Lis attended the concert itself.
Lis, if you remember what songs they each sang, please leave the info in the comments section (I know Lu did the Russian dance).
You might notice the flood of entries this evening; I have forgone my big screen TV and BCS title game (gasp!) to give Lisa a little time of her own in front of the TV. Don't worry - I'll have her make it up to me :)
Here's two blurry pics (taken in the ever-useless 'night' mode of my Kodak) and one computer lightened photo. All of them are mementos of a very neat day I spent with the kids in the week before Christmas.
You see, I never thought of taking down the trampoline for the winter. Then YaYa mentioned to me that the trampoline canvas was sinking and about to touch the ground.
Three feet of snow will do that.
So we piled out there and spent a good hour clearing it off, with the girls taking deep pride in removing blocks of ice, the bigger the better their boast.
Greetings folks - hope your 2008 is proceeding as planned.
Here at the Slapinions household we're nearly done with the two and a half-week cold/flu - I only lose one meal in ten now! - and all the kids save the baby are over it ..
[But as I wrote the above paragraph this past morning YaYa came up to me and announced she was going upstairs for a nap - She For Whom Naps Must Be Force Fed Down Her Throat - because she felt ill]
Still, it seems like the flu/cold caused the ruin of many of our Christmas traditions. We've missed Candy Cane Lane, and due to my in-law's fragile immune systems we've yet to see my father-in-law's side of the family (and on Christmas proper we were forced to cancel all engagements).
We've still got presents to hand out (yo, Tre! it's past the epiphany already!) but it feels like much of Christmas bypassed us in 2007.
Oh bleeping well. It was still a pretty good holiday.
* * *
As usual there is much to catch up on here on the site - the Chuck E Cheese party for one, and all that summer schtuff, but that will have to wait for later/ever?
I've promised Lisa I'll do some old-school 600 word columns on what she calls one of the "The Four Statements Guaranteed to Make My Friends Hate You and Change Their View of You Forever". [paraphrased, but close to verbatim]
No, I'm not a Nazi and I don't believe in UFO's. Rest easy ladies, rest easy.
One of the four statements is politicalin nature (actually, I think two are) so I reckon I'll work on one involving my choices for the 2008 primaries.
Meanwhile, I should get some sleep. That ole one-meal-lost-in-ten has kept me up past my bedtime tonight :)
BTW - anyone else notice the political spam slapped onto the comments of the kids NY Eve post? WTF is that?
One bad thing about running a blog for three years is that you're never quite sure what you've mentioned in print and what you haven't, because you're ALWAYS composing posts in your head.
On the 5th of December Smiley had tubes put in his ears. You may fill in the blanks with any cliche you like - what a brave boy, etc - because they all ring true. Frankly, I'm not even sure he realized anything happened. As far as he knows he got to mess around with a stethoscope, fell asleep, and woke up to watch Elmo. Period.
[At a slightly older age YaYa had a minor procedure. She didn't enjoy the 'drunkenness' of the anesthesia and asked the doc "Why you have three heads?" then vomited on the way home. Smiley enjoyed the heck out of the intoxicant and had no ill-effects from the drugs]
Since then its been a parade of hearing tests. There's no magic bullet and he hasn't blossomed into a Kennedy-esque speaker, or even mastered more than one additional word [blue = 'bool"].
At the last appointment on Thursday they gave his right ear a clean bill of health but noted problems with the left. They want the doc to look at it again and have us signing him up for speech, hearing, and development assessments. That's crap - the boy can't speak, but he's a thousand ways from dumb or mentally slow. If only politicians were granted half his brains and all of his speech.
Today we noticed a thick, milkish fluid pooled in his left ear - think the android blood from Alien - which was both alarming and disgusting. There's another medical appointment this week, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.
I watched both games yesterday. I'm a Seattle fan so that was a pretty easy game to pick sides. Washington was over-rated, and that whole Sean Taylor thing . . a tragedy yes, but it wasn't like losing Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, or for that matter even ThurmanMunson. How long can you stretch out a family's pain for your own PR?
I'm glad the Seahawks won, and sad that I now have to root for them to lose - they'll face Green Bay next week.
The AFC game rocked. I didn't have a clear favorite going in but Jacksonville certainly won me over. The 4th and 2 turned 30 yard run - priceless. I thought they played it a little too safe at the end, but they pulled it out. Good for them, and for their quarterback.
Now today's games . . I say the Giants over TB, SD over Tennessee. We'll see.
UPDATE: I was right about both, but the games were abysmally boring.
