halloween aftermath...

the much anticipated halloween festivities 2008-style are in the books. we had surprisingly few customers who dared to come to the gate of our haunted mansion this year. the night was warmer than average and i had guessed that a friday night all-hallows eve would put a bigger dent in our candy supply. the kids, if you haven't guessed, went as follows: alaina went as an 80's pop\rock star, owen was a "mystic force" power ranger, (not to be confused with a jungle fury or operation overdrive power ranger), and noelle went as a sorceress (we will also accept, witch or female who conducts sorcery). noelle insisted that i not remove the red-eye from the photo to help enhance the evil effect. it must be said though that the scariest part of the photo is the cat box in the corner - sorry!

there's only one october...

so, they are resuming game 5 of the world series in the bottom of the 6th in philly tonight? this has got to be unprecendented - and it kind of makes for a wierd night of baseball. perhaps that will mean only a 3 hour game? a couple questions, do the umpires have to resume their same positions as before? do the players have to wear the same wet and mud stained uni's? will we be treated to yet another rendition of john oates excruciating version of the national anthem in extended falsetto? (i can't go for that). if so, will daryl be joining him this time? will joe maddon's hat flaps be up or down? tune in tonight at 7:37 cst for the answer to these and many more questions. btw, thanks jason, the taco's were delicious.
i'm at the point of the year where i have to start "using or losing" some pto hours, hence my decision to take friday - this is halloween, and monday off. no outlandish plans, other than a few odd jobs around the house and maybe some winterizing and leaf raking. the kids are amped for the candy harvest as usual - costumes at the ready. considering a bonfire in the front yard this year to help light the way for kids and ward off any evil spirits.
looking forward to the dst change over this weekend and the additional hour of sleep that i will potentially sqauander gaming online.

blogging on life support...

professional blogger, paul boutin, correspondent for vallywag (a silicon valley BLOG) has written a short essay for wired magazine on how he believes that blogging is dead. he says blogging "is so 2004", that if you're thinking of starting one, you shouldn't, and if you already have one, you should "pull the plug". he goes on to say how twitter, flickr, and facebook are the new blog, and that it's not the bright idea that it was four years ago, mostly due to over saturation, - it's too big, and too impersonal. he says that it's impossible to "get noticed", which i'm sot sure is the intent of your ordinary joe the plumber blogger, (it certainly wasn't mine), and that your blog only attracts the 'nets lowest form of life - the insult commenter. now, it's hard to argue with many of these points. it could also be noted that he is basically saying leave the blogging to professional writers like him and take down your weak personal blog that no one reads because it sucks and you're a loser. i think the question is a bit bigger than that. you have to realize what a blogger's intention is and what they envisioned their blog to be, or not be. i, like scads of others, began blogging before blogger and wordpress we're mainstream (yes, that's what everyone says but it's true) and i have kept running with it, not because i think it will ever make me famous, but mostly because i still occasionally kind of like to do it. i probably post less often than i used to, (maybe once a week?) but i have supplemented, rather than completely replaced my posts, with 140 charachter and under tweets, via twitter. i never started this with any goal other than "to document my day-to-day activities, archive the past, post occasional pictures, and attempt to appear cooler than i really am" as it states in my profile bio. now, granted, blogging doesn't make you appear cool at all in todays world, so i may have to re-think my mission statement. i don't consider my self a clever wordsmith, or even a a cut-rate journalist, and i've never tried to be. the fact is that blogging still provides me the outlet i want and people are always free to choose to read it or not - which is how it should be. there may be a time in the future, and i've discussed this with others that blog, where all amatuer blogging will run it's course and just sort of die away - but i'm not sure that i'm ready for that to happen today.
this concludes this weeks obligatory post - only tweets now til the 4th week of october.

why i still root for the redsox...

i am one who usually pulls for the underdog, especially when there are two teams playing each other that i have no emotional investment in. everyone loves the worst-to-first, cinderella story and i am no exception. anybody that follows baseball knows that the feel-good story of the year is the tampa bay rays (minus the "devil" this year). i get that they are a bunch of young rag-tag no names who overachieved this year, i happen to think their manager, joe maddon is a baseball genius, and they have several players who are ex twins, a team that i do have an emotional attachment to. i also get that tampa bay is not necessarily considered a baseball town as evident by the fact that they didn't sell out their tropicana dome until their winning the division was eminent (i guess i can't really blame floridians for not wanting to go indoors on a perfect summer day to watch a historically fledgling team). it's always easier to observe from a distance and then jump on the bandwagon once your team starts to achieve some success. that said, i also understand that the redsox over the past few years have transitioned into a yankees step-brother evil empire equivalent, what with their bloated payrolls, and their ability to recognize a need and then be able to go out and acquire the best option at that position regardless of the price tag (part of me is jealous that my home team is able, but not willing to do that). they also have notoriously over-zealous fans, who are up and down with the team through it's peaks and valley's over the course of the season. they are what i like to call - passionate. having fans get after their teams for not performing up to par is a good thing and should be recognized as "caring", as in, the fans still have an interest. same thing can be said when the team is performing well - they should be proud and be able to gloat a little. i have no problem with either of these scenarios. i think having apathy is worse than having passion, even if the passion means voicing your opinion at times. the redsox, like the cardinals, yankees, and cubs, have legions of baseball fans all over the country. people who know the game and have lived and died by their team since childhood, and even sometimes travel with their team on the road, (which may signal an unhealthy obsession but that's another debate). growing up as a boy in the mid-seventies in the boston area, my first baseball experience was with following the likes of carlton fisk, fred lynn, yaz, and jim rice at good 'ol fenway park. doesn't mean i can't like other teams too, because i do, but the sox will always hold a special place for me, it's nothing i have consciously decided, it's just how it is. they may very well get beat in the a.l.c.s. by a tampa team that is out-playing them in every aspect of the game at the moment, and i'm ok with that. a part of me would be happy to see the cinderella story go down, but a bigger part of me wants the sox to do well, to dust themselves off, and get after it. the cinderella story works better for me when it's not at my teams expense.

normal...

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

- Ellen Goodman

my fellow americans...

me as president? click here for the full story.

that time again...

update

the bike marathon went off without a hitch. the foliage is still a couple of weeks from peaking but fall is definitely in the air. the day started cool but got warmer and was sunny as promised. no one could tell me how far the marathon actually is with any degree of accuracy. we heard 6, 6.2, 6.9, 7.2, and 9.5 (which it is not - thirdthoughts regrets the previous error). my best guess is 7.2 because it was a little more than 3.5 miles each way. thanks to all of my family members who donated towards the cause - we appreciate it! catch the pics here.

we're approaching the first saturday of october and that can only mean one thing. it's time for the annual marathon for non-public education (see recap from last year, and the year before that). lest anyone think we've been in training for a 26+ mile run, this is 9.5 mile bike marathon, which you can walk, ride, skip, gallop, or skate if you choose. this is owen's first marathon eventand he'll be co-piloting with me on the tandem. his job will be to peddle, for visual effect if nothing else, and look cool. i'll be powering the rig in the front seat. noelle is biking it with us too but alaina has to skip out this year due to a soccer game commitment. the weather is supposed to be fantastic and on sunny autumn days this is a stunning trip through minnehaha park along the mississippi river with the changing colors and the gorgeous views. looking forward to it.