A Case Of The Mondays
I’ll admit, sometimes I feel like my life is one big first world problem. I’m super fortunate that while there are some annoyances that test my patience each day, some wrinkles I’d love to have smoothed out, I face no true, big problems. I try to remain mindful and thankful of that at all times, as I know how quickly…
A Few Digital Music Thoughts
The horse is long out of the barn. That’s my reaction to Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke’s announcement earlier this week that he was pulling his solo and Atoms For Peace music from the streaming service Spotify to protest the minuscule royalty payments it, and other similar services, issues to artists. I absolutely agree with his point: there needs to…
2013 All Star Game
This year’s All-Star Game retrospective won’t be quite as exhaustive as some in the past have been. By the time S. was home from a meeting and the girls were in bed, it was the top of the third. Fortunately, it was still 0-0 so with the exception of Robinson Cano getting plunked, I saw just about all the best game…
Weekend Notes
Catching up on the weekend and some girls notes as we wrap up a sleep-over. We swapped daughters with our neighbors last night. C. went next door to sleep with her 7-year-old buddy while M.’s 9-year-old pal came to our home for the night. Our evening was uneventful. We ate dinner, then the girls watched the newest American Girl Doll…
Books
Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. I was never a comic book guy. I did have some Star Wars comics1 and dabbled in GI Joe comics in the early 80s, but that was about it. I think because I was never into comics, I was also never into super heroes. So while it has become fashionable in some circles…
Sports Notes
The promised thoughts on a few of the biggest sports news of the holiday week. Brad Stevens to the Boston Celtics. I was walking into a local brewery to fill growlers for the weekend last Wednesday when I got a text asking what I thought about the move. My first response was “Holy shit!” There were no rumbles here in…
Holiday Weekend
Our long holiday week went pretty well. We had visitors from Denver, including the girls’ two cousins that they loved seeing. The cousins are three years and 15 months, and our girls think they’re the best things ever. M., C., and L. could not have been happier than they were playing with them, helping the little one up and down…
Weekend Notes
Some weekend notes. They did it! The Royals finally made the right moves and designated Jeff Francouer for assignment and called up second baseman Johnny Giavotella. Gio responded by going 3-4 Sunday and making a couple very good plays in the field. Eric Hosmer is warming up, David Lough has been fantastic. If they can just get Moustakas going they…
2013 NBA Draft
My first blog post, on the first version of this site, ten years ago was a Bill Simmons-like breakdown of the 2003 NBA Draft. Now, as I watch the 2013 draft, Bill Simmons is manning the ESPN table with Reece Davis, Jalen Rose, and Jay Bilas. Does that qualify as coming full circle? I won’t mince words: this is a…
Books
The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First – Jonah Keri. It is too tempting, and too easy, to call this Moneyball 2.0&. Where Michael Lewis examined how the Oakland Athletics built a winner on a meager budget through the use of (then) obscure, advanced statistical analysis, Keri details how the…