Happy Birthday!

Happy 20th Birthday Jonah!

Today is also, as I pointed out last night at work, the 45th anniversary of the moon landing. I did err tho' in saying Chappaquiddick happened the same day - it was actually the 18th of that month. My bad.

James Garner

Aw man. RIP James Garner, age 86

Argh

When Parker was at camp I surprised him by cleaning his room, so with Lu gone since Sunday (Saturday, if you believe my Mom) I decided to do the same. I cleaned a bunch of it yesterday, then just went upstairs to finish the job. Except, of course, that the room is now thrashed. I'll skip the dialogue excerpts, but let's just say I wasn't happy. No one admits to it, and Junie even blamed LuLu- never mind that she's up in Door County. $%#%@#

Yup

It's All Relative

Enjoying the new reality show "Leah Remini: It's All Relative". It's a hoot. #leahtlc

Quake

This morning, at around 6:51 AM my time, I had the unusual experience of being on the phone with Fred Bryan when an earthquake hit his hometown of Yakutat, Alaska. Cocky as he is, he calmly stated it felt like a "5.0". Sadly, he is no seismograph; the web says it was a 6.0.

JFK Jr.

Today is the 15th anniversary of the death of JFK, Jr. He was such an iconic figure during my early lifetime. I remember watching coverage of the search for him while living at our apartment on 23rd street, and knowing in my heart that tragedy had befallen the Kennedy's yet again. 

Banshee Chapter

Watching a scary movie with dad 😱🎬  Banshee Chapter - YaYa

The Snowtown Murders

This morning we watched "The Snowtown Murders", a movie based on the story of Australia's "worst" serial killer and how he groomed and corrupted an abused young man to be his protege. It was . . . well, it was depressing and frightening and sad and graphic. There is child abuse, sibling rape, torture, animal abuse, and a prolonged murder scene. Describing it makes it sound like a snuff film, and it assuredly was not, with most of the above - but sadly, not all - occurring off camera. It's a well made, serious film that's what I call an "Oriental" meaning it would play at an independent show house like the Oriental or Downer. If you can handle it I strongly recommend streaming it on Netflix. Just don't expect to smile for the rest of the day.

I hope so

AT&T

While their product is great, I can't continue with AT&T for my TV and Internet.

I'm on a plan that's supposed to be "X" a month, and yet, EVERY month it's a different amount. This month's tally is literally double what it should be. I'm going to call, they're going to claim the difference is because of taxes, fees, the end of a promotional period (it's not), or an increase in the price of strawberries in Kansas. , I'm going to argue, they'll knock something off the top, and we call a truce for a month. Or so it would normally go. But this month we are super tight, and even if we weren't enough is enough. 

What's worse, AT&T just bought out my cell phone provider, which explains why their normally exemplary customer service went down the tubes last month. Ugh.

That's a Pretty Big Difference

"The difference between us is that we're using missile defense to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Big Blue

15 years ago today, Big Blue collapsed at Miller Park, killing three workers.

I remember my friend Tre calling me with the news, and turning on the TV to watch coverage of the tragedy in the living room of our apartment on 23rd St. 

Frolics Fireworks

The family bugged me to go to fireworks but then gave up the fight, heading off to bed while actively expressing their dislike in who Lisa chose to be their father. Usually that doesn't bother me, but this time I said WTH and rousted them out of bed to go the South Shore Frolics. (Lisa and YaYa chose to stay home, even though Yaya had been the biggest proponent) . No parking whatsoever, so Junie, Smiley and I had to walk from a spot on Indiana and Fernwood to our eventual seats a block east of Texas and Superior (Mapquest it). It was a great view and the fireworks were swell, and I couldn't have had better company. :)

Here's the adult version of the before-mentioned evening: All of the preceding was true. But in addition, the kids got an extra special treat. A group of young males, eager to disprove cultural notions about the role they play in society, decided to start screaming and swearing and hollering the N word, over some slight, be it real or imagined. Before too long they were brawling in the street, both with members of their party and some locals who had told them to knock it off. Two pairs of guys were swinging at each other, and another pair were rolling around on the ground like it was a "stop drop and roll" exercise." As we were sitting at the end of a dead end street about 150 ft from this fracas (actually, Lauren was sitting on my shoulders) I was a bit concerned. Then - and I mean this literally - I saw how cartoonishly inept they were at inflicting damage on one another, gauged my chances of success as "high" if it came to it, and told the kids to ignore it and watch the fireworks. Two squads came to break it up by by then they'd moved on .F'ing ridiculous.

Faux Child Free

Lulu is now away at Girl Scout camp, set to explore Door County for the next five days, Yaya is at a friends house in our old stomping grounds near 31st and Mitchell, LK is still at Grandma's, and Smiley. . . Smiely has spent the entire day glued to his tablet in his room. This is about as close to "childless" as it gets for #TeamSlap

Soccer and Boxing

Wow, the World Cup Finals in on the air, and at the half the score is . . . . 0-0. [crickets chirp]. What a tremendously exciting sport.

Update: 

Rather than waste precious hours of my life watching a World Cup match that is 0-0 *at the completion of regular time* I fired up last nights Canelo-Lara bout. I scored it even up 114-114, with one round that really could have gone either way. The judges scored it 115-113 (one for Canelo, one for Lara), but the deciding score was a ridiculous 117-111 in Canelo's favor. That judge, IMHO, is on crack.

Disappointed a planned bowling outing with Da Boyzzz was cancelled, especially since Mike Ste-- had extended the invitation to Smiley . . . maybe next time.

Walked with YaYa from guitar class to the library then home, a nice brisk pace. Then watched Jerry Quarry v Ken Norton ('75) and now Joe Louis v Cesar Brion ('50) update: then Bob Foster v Mike Quarry ('72)

The South Shore Frolics Parade

The South Shore Frolics parade in Bay View Milwaukee this morning (Pd and I didn't attend)

+

That's Smiley on the drum!

Watching Joe Frazier v Manuel Ramos for the Heavyweight belt (June 24, 1968). GREAT opening round. Update: but not much more than that.  Frazier did what Frazier did and the fight was soon stopped by the ref

Lewis-Rahman

Yesterday I also watched the Lennox Lewis-Phil Jackson fight from '94, and Lewis's upset loss to Hasim Rahman in 2001. That one ticked me off, because Lewis lost for no other reason than he was cocky and lazy. They compared it later to Tyson-Douglas, but nuh-uh. Douglas was motivated and fought a great fight, whereas Rahman stumbled through the whole affair. Lewis should have owned this match. There was no excuse for Lennox to clown around with a big grin and his guard down, and he paid for it allright; one punch and he was out and his belts were gone. It was irritating and it made the announcer's earlier quote - which I loved - ring prophetic: [paraphrased] "he better stop taking this so lightly, because his chin doesn't know the other guy's a 20-1 underdog"

Watching the Lennox Lewis-David Tua championship bout from Armistice Day 2000.

Some Views from the Ship

Regret

We scrimped and saved to send Smiley to summer camp w/ the Y, and dammit we pulled it off, although we could only afford a half-session. Then tonight the camp called, saying Smiley was asking to please stay and finish out the week, and the Y even offered to slash the price for him. Still, given my checkbook balance, it had to be a no. 

Major guilt, major regret here. A little bitter that #TeamSlap was thrown in the deep end decades ago and left to fend for itself ever since, but OTOH, proud as hell that what we have is our own and that no thanks are owed to anyone.