FRS

Well, At Least The FRS Recovered

When I blogged last night things looked grim for the Sox and they were trailing the Yankees 6-2 when they came to bat in the bottom of the eighth, but they scored 5 times to end up winning the game. In this afternoon’s contest they were back and forth until the FRS scored three in the bottom of the fourth and kept the lead until the end.

While I, on the other hand, if anything, got worse. The sore throat peaked this morning and is going away, but I’m in full blown (pun intended) running nose, watery eyes and body aches. I’m hitting the showers as soon as I’m done typing this and going to bed.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 123

The Real Baseball Season Starts Today

The 2007 Major League Baseball season has been in process for a couple of weeks now, but tonight is really opening day. The dreaded Yankees are in town for a three game set. I am apparently not the only one excited by this series of games this early in the season, tonight’s game is on ESPN, tomorrow’s is on Fox and Sunday night it’s ESPN again.

So far it looks like the Sox are playing like I feel, a little out of it. Woke up this morning with a sore throat and a runny nose. Of course the reason they are losing 5-3 in the seventh could be those ugly green uniforms they are wearing tonight (supposedly a Boston Celtic / Red Auerbach tribute.)

Or it could be some bad karma I caused with my little phone call prank on my boss the Yankee fan this morning. Thanks to XM Radio I sent him a voice mail from Big Papi, David Ortiz, telling him about MLB on XM and I customized it so David would call him a Red Sox fan.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 122

Princess Leia Gets Hers Too

Red Sox NationPrincess Leia’s Red Sox Nation membership card came in the mail a day after Chewbacca’s. She’s not sure where she will put her bumper sticker yet, but right now she is leaning towards placing it on C3PO’s back just out of his reach in hopes of sending him into an infinite feedback loop of fastidiousness.

It is supposed to be a glorious spring weekend here and we are not exactly sure what to do with it:

Option #1, and the most unlikely, is to drive 250 miles to Columbus, GA and do one last BMW Ultimate Drive before they are entirely out of reach. (+) it sure is fun to drive BMWs. (–) 3 times a charm, but 4 is slightly obsessive. (–) it would mean another hotel room and another mediocre breakfast buffet.

Option #2, and slightly more probable, would be a drive of 125 miles to go to Beaufort, SC to see the Blue Angels. (+) air shows are cool. (+) there would be the chance to get a picture of the Post Office on the Marine Corp Air Station where the show is. (–) big crowds of people and we just left that party in NJ. (–) we really don’t want to go anywhere having been traveling the last two weekends. (+) a meal of crab cakes at Barbara Jean’s might be just the enticement to tip the scales towards going down there.

Option #3, and most likely, is dinner out in Augusta with friends on Friday and staying around the house. I really need to to clean all the pine pollen off the tables and floors on the screen porch. The furniture cushions need vacuuming too. It is spring and this is the best time to enjoy our meals, etc out there, but the porch needs some sprucing up first. And if we get restless we could always drive to Columbia on Sunday morning and take some Post Office pictures.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 120

I Know Why He Did It

Red Sox NationChewie is so excited he wants to blast something. His Red Sox Nation membership card came in the mail today. There is a small bumper sticker that goes along with it and he’s going to put it on the Millennium Falcon when Han isn’t looking.

While in DC the other week, after we walked to a lot of the war memorials in West Potomac Park we headed over to the Tidal Basin to see if we could find any cherry trees that still had blossoms on it. Unfortunately there were only a few. There are about three or four varieties of cherry trees planted around the basin so that some of them bloom at different times, but during our walk we only came across about three trees that looked like they were at their peak. Because of the great distances between bloomed trees, my dream of a sweeping panorama of blooming trees with the Jefferson Memorial in the background (very postcard-like) was squashed. I did take a couple of close ups of one blooming tree. As we strolled along I was looking down reviewing my last pictures when – SMACK -my head hit a low hanging branch. I know now why George Washington chopped down that cherry tree. It wasn’t bad enough to make me see stars, but I did decide from then forward that I would wait until I was stopped to look down at the camera’s LCD.

Our free Chargrilled sandwich from Chick-Fil-A cost us $8.09. We used the coupon from the Chick-Fil-A calendar, but to get the sandwich you had to buy a small fruit cup and a medium soda. We sometimes split a meal when we go out, but that amount wouldn’t be enought so we added a Chicken Strip Salad to the tray.

Meal Cost: $8.09
Tip: None
Spent Today: $8.09
Year to Date: $859.45

I’ve added a forwarded email joke to the Joke Page.

Also added 8 photos from the Sterling, VA BMW Ultimate Drive. No captions yet, probably tomorrow.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 118

13 Trillion Yen Man

Dice-KI was all set to listen to the Red Sox game on the Internet tonight when I found out they played an afternoon game. On the mound was their new acquisition, Daisuke Matsuzaka (AKA Dice-K) that they paid around 50 million bucks just for the rights to try and sign him to a contract. Then they spent 50 more to sign him. So far he looks like he may be worth the money, giving up just one run on six hits while striking out 10 in seven innings. Twenty more games like that this year and I may take up learning Japanese.

Tomorrow is a holiday for ASCO, so Donna and I will probably sleep late and take a hike in the woods. Saturday we will probably sleep late and try a bike ride. Sunday we will get get up at 4AM to drive to CAE and hop a plane to our nation’s capital. We are off to visit Donna’s friend Sally for a couple of days. She is back from Africa for a few months and learning Spanish now, because her next Embassy assignment is Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After DC we will head up the the ex-Hardware Capital of the World (New Britain, CT) for a brief visit with my family. After that, next Friday and Saturday we will be in NJ for a memorial service for Donna’s aunt Mary who passed away in January. Should be interesting, Mary had 4 daughters, three talk to each other, but two of them aren’t talking to one.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 112

You Mean It Counts Now?

Parking Lot PollenSomeone forgot to tell the FRS that it wasn’t spring training anymore. They lost big time to the KC Royals today on opening day. I was listening to the game on the net until I stumbled onto the ESPN broadcast. Kind of wish I hadn’t. Plus the Yankees won meaning we are already a game back…

The only thing that saved the evening was my after game channel surf discovered TDPM on USA Network again. I came in almost exactly in the same spot as last night too.

Jack Sparrow: I really rather hope we were past all this.
Barbossa: Jack… Jack! Did you not notice? That be the same island we made you the governor of on our last little trip.
Jack Sparrow: I did notice.
Barbossa: Perhaps, you’ll conjure up another miraculous escape, but I doubt it. Off you go.
Jack Sparrow: The last time you left me a pistol with one shot.
Barbossa: By the powers, you’re right. Where be Jack’s pistol? Bring it forward.
Jack Sparrow: Seeing as there’s two of us, a gentleman would give us a pair of pistols.
Barbossa: It’ll be one pistol as before, and you can be the gentleman and shoot the lady; and starve to death yourself.

This time I watched it all the way to the end and when I did I noticed that they added a little bit there to perhaps explain the very end of movie #2. The original movie ends with Jack at the helm of the Black Pearl, tonight it cut back to the cave and showed the monkey (Jack) swimming past the apple Barbossa drops when he dies. It hops up on the Aztec treasure chest and picks up a piece of gold, thereby turning into a skeleton. He hisses at the camera as we fade to black. I guess we are to assume that the monkey then puts the coin in Captain Barbossa’s pocket and that is how he shows up in the end of Dead Man’s Chest. Did we need this to explain his resurrection? I was perfectly happy to believe that Tia Dalma had brought him back to “life” by using some voodoo magic.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 106

Not So Busy Sunday

ConnecticutChanged the oil in the Emperor and rotated the tires. I did it a little early in preparation for our driving trip to the northeast starting next weekend. Then later in the day we changed our plans for the trip for the 8th and final time. We’re now flying into DC and renting a car. I say final because we are now locked in to some non-refundable airplane tickets. Two days in our nation’s capital, two days of who knows what, two days visiting my family in CT and two in NJ, before driving back to DC to get on a plane for SC.

I may get a second chance to sign the Ultimate Drive northern fleet’s signature vehicle that I forget about last Thursday in Columbia because they will be in Sterling, VA on Monday, April 8th. Its a mere 30 miles from where we are staying in DC.

We went for a tandem ride after I got done with the car. Cruised through some neighborhoods and hit a couple places to shove some bills into slots and then the Post Office to mail the rest. We ended up tallying over 15 miles, which is about 5 more than the last few rides and it felt pretty good. A few more weeks of 2 rides per and we’ll be ready to tackle a 25 mile loop. We have gone so far as thinking of adding some rack to the tandem so we can try to ride it to work some Fridays.

I re-upped for citizenship in the Red Sox Nation tonight. It was supposed to happen automatically, but they had the number on file of my comprised card that is no longer valid, so it didn’t happen. Tomorrow is opening day for the FRS in Kansas City, but the real season doesn’t start until Friday the 20th when the Bronx Bombers come to Fenway.

At approximately 9:40 PM my wife made the mistake of flipping through the channels and pausing long enough on USA for me to recognize what was showing – TDPM.

Will Turner: This is either madness… or brilliance.
Jack Sparrow: It’s remarkable how often those two traits coincide.

In other exciting news, with the 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond that was in today’s paper, I got a new pillow for sleepy time. We bought a new one for Donna too.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 106