Month: October 2004

Monkeys On My Back

I can’t stop rooting for the Red Sox just yet. I listened to the game on MLB.com until the 9th inning last night. Then I watched innings 10 through 13 on Fox. I turned it off about 10:30 thinking that they just might be at it all night. I’m watching or listening as long as it is convenient, I can seem to turn off the game and not worry about the out come. Maybe that is why the Red Sox keep hanging in there, they feel the same way, like they have nothing to lose, so what the heck. Of course it could be their master plan to fight back, forcing a 7th game, just so they can rip my heart out with a tragic loss on a walk-off homer by the unlikeliest Yankee (ala, Bucky Fucking Dent.)

Side Sills Coming

Walking back to the car, with the way the sun was hitting it, it made Donna notice the black lower body pinch seam and it looked ugly to her. It kind of does to me too, there is a spot where the flat black protective paint was kind of globbed on, so it is shiny, and a spot where the seam is bent slightly from sitting on jack stands, so it doesn’t look at all even under there. When I said that I could fix that by getting some side sills, she just collapsed from the weight of all the hints and said, “Buy them.” Called Trussville this morning and they will be here within the week.

It took about 5 years of modifying for me to get the ’95 Laguna Blue customized to my liking (and I was still tweaking it when I traded it in.) With this last modification it will have taken me just 11 months to get this car right where I want it.

So Much For Cold Turkey

The miserable bastards pulled it off last night by winning on an Ortiz homer in the bottom of the twelfth. I quit listening in the fourth and went to bed. The way I found out they won was when the weather channel OCM this morning gave me a forecast for game five in Boston. Seeing as they are playing this afternoon, I can’t use the going to bed excuse, so I’m listening to it on Internet radio. Once today’s game is over and they have lost, I’ll be able to forget about this painful period in my life…

My Exciting Day

Went for a walk in the woods this morning. We haven’t been on a hike in Hitchcock Woods in so long I can’t remember when, but finally getting back in there will hopefully get us back on the every weekend Sunday morning hike. It is definitely becoming fall, as the morning was crisp and cool, but not many leaves have changed color, so it still looks very green.

Off to Augusta Regional Airport (Fly Here Fly Home TM) in the MSV to pick up Aunt Mary. She flys direct from Newark to Augusta and vice versa on Continental Express and seeing as they are ceasing operations in Augusta at the end of this month, Mary returned for one last visit while the non-stop flights fly.

This afternoon Donna and I ran some errands and stumbled on a low-key car show in downtown Aiken put on by the Aiken Horsepower Association. We wandered up the street , stopped in for ice cream and then wandered back.

Tonight I’m listening to what could be the last Red Sox game of the year on MLB.com.

Next Time Take the By-Pass

This is our year. We are going to win the World Series. It just wouldn’t mean as much unless we beat the Yankees to get there. The road to the World Series goes through New York.

It is the top of the 5th in game 3 and the Red Sox are losing 13 to 6. They must have taken a wrong turn trying to get through NY. One time twenty-odd years ago I decided to drive through New York City on I-95 on my way back home to Connecticut from Tennessee. Not smart. Somehow I ended up in Coney Island. In trying to correct my error I some how ended up crossing the George Washington Bridge back into NJ. Ever since that fateful night, I have gone way around the Big Apple to the west on my way home to CT. I learned my lesson, apparently the Red Sox have not.

Wash Or Just Dust?

The Miata is kinda dirty because we actually had some rain this last week. The Peachtree Miata Club is coming into town for the weekend, but Donna and I will only be spending a bit of time on Saturday afternoon with them. Should I do the whole wash thing? Or should I just use the Californina Car Duster and some Meguiar’s Quik Detailer ?

I can still sense that the car feels slightly quicker and lighter on it’s feet because of the smaller, lighter wheels and their new rubber. I know my Budget Director might disagree, but I think the swap and money spent was definately worth it…

As my co-worker Brian remarked this afternoon, “The spoiler is still on there.”

You’re Killing Me

I don’t know which is worse, watching the Red Sox lose the first two games of the series to the Yankees or watching it on Fox.

Their announcing crew is hurting my ears. Somebody named Joe or Jack Buck sounds like the most intelligent of the three, but he doesn’t have to go far. Tim McCarver doesn’t seem to be watching the same game as I am, he consistently gets names of the players wrong and is out of step with the action. And Al Leiter is so quiet that the only time you know he is there is when they show him on camera explaining how to throw a certain pitch and for a former pitcher he does that badly. They talk when they sound be quiet and when they should be talking there is silence. We see every pitch four times, first when it happens and three replays including one from a camera buried in the dirt near home plate. Please an important pitch in an important situation, but not every single one. The direction is herky-jerky. It is all over the place and makes MTV jump cuts seem sedate. Whenever they switch to the camera down the first base line the sound jumps 10 decibels louder too. They have a very annoying animated baseball that is used once a game to explain some facet of the game, I think, I turn the sound off. Fox is inserting an extra bit of promoing in between innings, we get back to the game just in time to see the pitcher release his first pitch of the inning. No lead in at all, if a pinch hitter is in or a new pitcher, you don’t know until after the action (if they tell you.)

I know this might not be Fox’s fault (although it probably is) but what is up with the ameriquest blimp? We get some nice aerial shots of the stadium and then they flash a little box telling us that it is coming from the ameriquest blimp with a nice illustration of a red, white & blue blimp. We never see the blimp. I’m betting if it is not a helicopter, and in fact a real blimp, it is not painted that way, but something in plain white hired for the occasion from the ACME Blimp Co. in Lakehurst, NJ.