Monday ramblng and other nonsense.

How 'bout them Sox!
The Boston Nine outpitched, out hit, and in general out classed the Rockies in a four game sweep in this year's World Series. As usual, great pitching overpowers good hitting.
The Sox great pitchers shut down the good hitting of the Rockies, and the great hitting power lineup of Boston clobbered the good pitching of Colorado.
Great beats good most days.

The first NFL regular season game on foreign soil was as boring as the London fall weather.
The N.Y. Giants beat my old town Miami Dolphins (no surprise, they stink this year!) but neither team could really move the ball on that mud bath of a field in a driving, miserable rain at Wembley Stadium.
English fans, along with a few Ex-Pat Americans paid 80 pounds per seat.

What is the NFL thinking? They actually intend to place a team in London, and perhaps Berlin in the near future. And we don't have one in Los Angeles! Or Birmingham Alabama.

One commentator on Fox Sports put it best.
"The average English Sports fan cares as much for American Football as the average American Fan cares about Manchester United" (English football, aka Soccer.)

Why not expand to L.A., Mexico City, and perhaps Toronto, where people acutually like Football?

The weather here has finally become fall-like. The leaves are coming down in great clumps, we totally missed the wonderful palette of color here in Eastern NC this year.
The mountains were glorious though.
4.5" of rain last week was a blessing, but we still need another 20" or so.

It will dip into the mid-thirties tonight. We will flip the switch on our fireplace for the first time this season, (Propane, Bobby, and propane accesories! as Hank Hill would say)
and I had to turn on the heat last night.
Just a week or so ago we were still wearing shorts and experiencing temps in the eighties.

If you don't like our weather, wait 30 minutes and it will change for you.

I can smell Thanksgiving in the air, and with Halloween just the day after tomorrow, I am looking forward to eating too much sugary candy, and to our annual ritual of watching
"Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein" and "Young Frankenstein"
"Where wolf, there wolf!" and "You take the Blonde, I'll take the one in the Turban!"
Yes, I can recite most of the dialog from that Mel Brooks classic from memory.
Can't remember my own zip code sometimes, but I know a lot of useless stuff.

So have fun, don't worry about your diet on Wednesday (unless you are diabetic), start stacking those hay bales and decorating for Thanksgiving.

Christmas is just around the corner!

Alien invasion.

Driving to Virginia the other day I witnessed a shocking sight.
Water droplets appeared to be falling from the sky!
All of us seemed to be amazed and astounded by the sight.

When I stopped for lunch, someone clued me in.

"Why, that is rain, sir!"

"Rain, I queried?" "Exactly what is that?"

"Rain is a weather phenomena where droplets of water fall from the clouds in varying intensity.
Since we haven't seen it for some time, I can understand your confused state of being."

I didn't tell her that confused was my normal look, being a husband and dad of long standing.

We are only told what we need to know, ie; the dog barfed on the carpet, the toilet is overflowing, my car is making a Badda-Bing soundisthatnormalorshouldIworryDad?

I was in Blacksburg for three days, and it rained continuously there. They were only 10" behind, so this week's rain has them on the way to catching up.

I also saw a beautiful riot of color on I81 between Blacksburg North to Roanoke.
For those of you farther north in PA, a drive south on I81 should soothe your leaf lust.
It was the most glorious display I have seen in some years.

It is raining here in NC as I write this, but we have far more to go in order to catch up.
We are still around 20" behind our annual needs, and have gotten 3-4 inches in the last two days. A good start, but keep it coming!

For those of you who worry about Global warming, this has happened before.
1936 is the hottest year on record in the modern era, and the driest.
That is the worst year of the "Dust Bowl" years, when Sahara like dust storms raged over the entire middle of the U.S.

Most people did not have family cars then, few had ever flown on airplanes, and most people world wide were still living in rural areas. And there were no nukes or nuclear power plants either. Both of my parents lived on farms where they drew their water from wells and used the 'Privy' out back. My father never had electricity until his senior year of High School in 1938.

Weather is a living thing, it ebbs and flows and cycles as it's Creator wishes.

So, "Fear not, for he is with us..." and pray for more rain, especially in California and here in the Southeast.

And go outside and play in the rain with your kids!

Stinky team update.

Sorry Tribe fans.
Your team did it to you again!
With a 3 games to 1 lead it looked like a trip to the World Series was theirs.
As Steve Martin used to say, "But Noooooooooo!"
Your team found some unusual ways to lose, especially last night when the speedy Kenny Lofton
(not bad for a 40 year old, you go fellow old-timer) rounded third and could have easily scored to tie the game until his third base coach inexplicably held him at third.
The next Indian batter ground into a double play, and that was that.
The Red Sox blasted Cleveland
pitching for eight more runs in their next two at bats, and will play in the World Series for the second time in three years.
It will be fun to see Josh Beckett and Kurt Schilling pitch in the series.
And it looks like maybe I missed my calling as a weather forecaster.
There was snow in Denver yesterday while the Rockies worked out.

My Dolphins still stink, 0-7 after getting pasted by the Patriots 49-28 yesterday.
Jason Taylor had a great line "We can't beat anyone in this country, maybe we can win in another one" The FIns play the NY Giants Sunday in London in the new Wembley Stadium.

But at least the Miami 'Canes beat our most hated rival in their house Saturday, the Fla State 'Noles.
If you are having a sub-par year, all is well if you beat your biggest foe for the first time in four years.

Should be a great World Series, especially games one and two when Beckett and Schilling are on the mound for the Red Sox.

Thank the Lord for Baseball and the Fall Classic!

What to do when your team(s) stink?

For the first time in many, many years both of my home town football teams are having lousy seasons.
As of this post, the once glorious Miami Dolphins are winless at 0-6.
And the five time National Champion Miami Hurricanes are 4-3, but I don't expect them to win more than a game or two out of the remaining five. That would give them their worst record since the Carter administration. (Another loser.)

All I can say is, thank goodness for the baseball playoffs!

The Colorado Rockies just clinched their first trip to the Fall Classic by sweeping the Arizona nine. The Rockies have won 21 out of their last 22 games including the play offs, an incredible achievement.

And the Cleveland Indians, the team of choice for Queen Felicia's Ohio kin have the Red Stockings right where they want them with a 2-1 series lead.
They have exposed the Boston pitching staff to the fact that once you get past Josh Beckett, there really ain't much pitching there. He can't pitch every night, as good as he is.

I always look forward to the World Series, regardless of which teams make it.
This year's contest should prove to be extremely interesting and competitive.

So does one pull for a seemingly unbeatable team of destiny from Denver, or for the woeful Cleveland fans who haven't won a championship in any sport since LBJ was president?

The running back on that Champion Browns team was one Jim Brown.
And yes, I am old enough to remember watching that NFL Championship game.

Should be a great Series, I have it going 7 games for the first time in some years.

If Cleveland indeed wins the ALCS, I have them winning it all due to their home town edge.
It could be the first Series where snow is a factor in both cities.

"Snow in baseball, there isn't any snow in baseball!"

There may be this year, Sports Fans!

One favor though, could someone please get that guy in the cheap seats at "The Jake" to lose that dadgum drum!

I haven't seen anything that irritating since the Atlanta Brave/FSU Seminole chop!

The Ultimate Sacrifice

It's been awhile since I did a post.
Most of you know about the horrible news our son got a couple of weeks ago.
A good friend of his from HS, who also attended ASU with him for a year was
killed in a tragic accident while in training with the U.S. Marine Corps special anti-terrorism task force.
He was a two-way starter on the football team, an honor student, and a fine Christian man.
As his dad put it, "He felt called to stand in the gap"

I won't mention his name here out of respect for the family.
All of you have the details through my emails.

When I arrived for the viewing last Thursday just a few minutes past six, there were already several hundred people lined up to pay their respect.
There were just as many waiting over ninety minutes later when I left.

His entire platoon was there at parade rest, wearing their dress blues and holding their covers (Dress Hat) in front of them.
One by one, they very precisely and somberly moved up to the front to relieve the man standing honor for him. They all took turns doing so, including the Navy Corpsman (Medical).

I saw many of my son's friends from High School. All who are still attending school in the area were there, as was the entire faculty and coaching staff from the school.

His parents and his older brother were devastated, as you can imagine.
All of us felt the worst for his finacee, who was his sweetheart since High School.
Our son remembered how they met after his friend suffered a concussion during a road trip game. She sat with him on the bus during the ride home, to make sure he was awake and OK.
They were to have been married next summer.
There is really nothing you can say under such circumstances.
Even though I didn't know her, she gave me a hug and did so with everyone who came by for over three hours.
Such dignity and grace is only granted by the Father.

Just remember the next time you see the preening idiots in our government and media using our service people for their own selfish ends the cost our young men and women, and their families have to pay sometimes.

The ultimate cost.

Our military is entirely voluntary. There has been no draft since 1972, the year I was 18 and draft eligible.

And contrary to what one particular blow hard Senator recently said (who reminds us every time he speaks about his service) our military, law enforcement and fire fighters do not choose their professions because they can't do anything else.

The Lance Corporal was an honor student.
My son is an honor student, and could do anything he wanted too vocation wise.

They are called and choose to serve.

Never forget that.

"Greater love has no man, that he lay down his life for a friend." The Saviour.