FRS

Athleticism, power, grace, joyous victory and heartbreaking defeat. No, not the Olympics, but the Most Best of MXC 2 was on Spike TV from 1 to 2 PM today. It was a lot more entertaining than Men’s Field Hockey, Women’s Handball or the Mixed Double’s Badminton from Beijing.

I knew the political conventions were coming up and a quick check of Wikipedia reveals that the Democratic Convention is next weekend from August 25 to August 27 at Pepsi Center and on August 28 at INVESCO Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado. The Republican Convention will take place at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota from September 1 until September 4, 2008. Maybe if you just said Denver and Saint Paul, leaving off the corporate named venues, it would sound more presidential to me.

The best game the FRS have played so far in this weekend series with the Toronto Blue Jays was the game they didn’t take the field in. They were rained out on Friday. Yesterday they lost 4 to 1 and today after just 3 innings they are losing 8 to nothing. Should have banked some of those runs they scored last week against Texas.

This morning at about the halfway point of our 16 mile bike ride, we took a water break at a stop sign. While we waited for a car to go by we took a quick drink and snagged a quick kiss before taking off again. Cyclists are still a fairly odd sight on the back roads of South Carolina, so we are used to strange looks from motorists, but the one we got from this driver was really odd – his was giving us a kissy face, perhaps asking for a smooch of his own.

Through the magic of a Paint Shop Pro I can paint in watercolor. This is from last Sunday’s visit to Hopeland Gardens home of the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame & Museum.

Having spent the last two nights in separate rooms, me with baseball in one and her with the Olympics in another, tonight we decided to be in the same room at the same time. I’m listening to the FRS on the internet via laptop on one end of the couch and Donna is watching the Olympics on the other end. Right now there is two women beach volleyball on that I keep noticing in my peripheral. All I have to say is with all those players on the sand at one time, it is a good thing they have numbers on their suits, so we can keep track of who is who.

On another Olympics related note, I happened to catch the Nike commercial for the Redeem Team while watching sports center (should that be capitalized? one word?) on ESPN this morning. We have been subjected to many renditions of our national anthem over the years, some very good – Whitney Huston prior to the Super Bowl and some very bad – Rosanne Barr before a San Diego Padres baseball game, but I really like this non-traditional version of Marvin Gaye‘s that is the basis for this commercial.

For some entertaining reading, try the online version of “Seattle’s Only Newspaper”, The Stranger.

The last few days have been chock full o’ fun, the FRS have lost a bunch of games and Manny Ramirez has been all over the sports pages. There has been plenty of trade talks, Boston and Florida, then Boston and Florida and Pittsburgh. I left work at 4 PM, which was the trading deadline, and there were still conflicting reports – it was going to happen, it wasn’t going to happen. I got home at 4:30 and there was still nothing new.

I was finishing up painting in the middle bedroom around 6 o’clock when Donna came in and said, “Your friend is going to Los Angeles.” At first I thought Angels? No, it had to be the Dodgers and it was. I’ll let the real sports nuts debate over which team got the best part of the deal or the worse part of it, but right now looking at FRS left fielders, new and old, if both players continue at their present production, it looks like a wash. Player to front office relationship has improved, but, more importantly, how it will effect the clubhouse, ask me in a month.

As a fan, I will definitely miss the Manny Being Manny moments, it was nice to see someone enjoy baseball as a game, but for every phone call from the wall during pitching changes there seemed to be a missed game due to “injury” or misplayed ball in left.

Have fun in LA Manny.