Double A and The Mayor

A lot of the talk today will be about Big Papi’s grand slam, Jed Lowrie’s first start at Fenway, or the fact that Dice-K got his AL leading fourth win of the season, despite the fact that he has been unable to get out of the sixth inning in any of his five starts.

So I’m going to talk about something else, in particular, two Red Sox players whose signings were not that big of a deal at the time, but they have both managed to make an impact on this team in the early going.

I’ll start with Sean Casey. On my old BostonNOW blog, which seems to be gone now, I noted at the time we signed him that it was a good move. I noted that, not only was Casey a good guy, which was already well known, but he was also a pretty good hitter (he’s currently sporting a .302 lifetime batting average) and that not only was he a good backup for both Kevin Youkilis and Mike Lowell, but he would also be nice insurance in case we lost one of them for any extended period of time.

Well, it didn’t take long for that to happen, as Lowell went down with the sprained thumb on April 9th, and is probably going to miss at least a couple of more weeks. No problem, Youk moved across the diamond to third and The Mayor stepped into the game at first and went 2-4 with a run scored. In 9 games since Lowell’s injury, Casey is batting .354 with an OBP of .444. He’s been on base 16 times, has scored 5 runs and driven in 6. Not only that, but he’s fun to watch. Every time they show this guy he’s got a smile on his face and his mouth is moving. He’s always talking to someone, whether it’s an umpire, an opposing player, or a teammate, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else having as much fun playing Major League baseball as Sean Casey seems to be having. We want, and need Mike Lowell back, but having The Mayor around until that happens is making it a lot easier.

For a guy who’s only 26, David Aardsma has been around. He’s already been traded 3 times, starting in San Francisco and playing for both Chicago teams. The good news is he’s got two good pitches, a mid 90’s fastball and an above average slider. The bad news is that he struggles with his control and, although he projects as a good set up man, he’s never been able to put it together, resulting in 3 teams giving up on him.

He’s still having some control problems, walking 8 and hitting a batter in 11 innings so far this year, but he’s also struck out 9 (a regular Nuke Laloosh), and although he’s gotten himself into some trouble, like last night, he’s also gotten himself out of it most of the time. Terry Francona has trusted him in a couple of key situations so far this year, and he’s responded well. It’s still early, and Aardsma started off well with the White Sox last season before completely losing it, but maybe he’s finally going to put it together and become the reliever that many scouts thought he was capable of becoming. He’ll definitely have to cut down the walks though. It would certainly be nice to have another weapon in the bullpen for this year and for the long-term, and David Aardsma could just be that guy.

Black Jack, Sopranos Style

Last night I had another strange dream that I remembered. I was a member of Tony Soprano’s crew and we were at a meeting. There were 7 or 8 of us sitting around a table and the meeting started off with us all laughing as we watched a news report citing the death of former mob boss Corrado “Junior” Soprano, even though Junior was standing directly behind Tony, who was sitting at the head of the table, right at that moment.

Besides Junior and Tony, the only other member I recognized was Christopher Moltisanti. The meeting went on for a few minutes and I don’t remember anything we talked about. When it was over most of the group got up and walked out, with the exception of the guy sitting across from me at the end of the table. He challenged me to a card game, and when Moltisanti heard the challenge, he came over to join us.

Motisanti sat down across from me to the right of the unnamed guy. We were playing for pretty big stakes; it was a $5 buy in. “No Name” dealt, the game was Black Jack and for some reason, Moltisanti, sitting to his right, had the first bet. He went all in and we both called him, so this was going to be a short game. Moltisanti took a hit and busted. No name took a hit and stayed. I took a hit and also busted.

“No Name” collected the money and started to get up without showing us his hand. As we pressed him, he held onto his cards and refused to show them. We finally forced them out of his hands and took a look. He had also busted.

In a normal card game among normal friends this probably would have never happened in the first place. But if it had, there would have been some yelling, and maybe the other guys would have held a grudge for a day or two, before he was forgiven.

But this wasn’t a normal card game; this was a card game in the world of The Sopranos, so you know there was only one way this was going to end. That’s right, Chrissy and I beat the holy crap out of the guy, and then walked out of the room laughing about it, as we left “No Name” lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

I’m not sure if I woke up after that or not, but that’s it, that’s all I remember.

Back To School Nightmare

I know, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog. I moved all of my Red Sox/baseball stuff to here, and I’ve been spending all of my blogging time over there since. I never intended to abandon this one, I just haven’t seen or experienced much lately that has inspired me to blog about. Hopefully that will change as I had my first inspiration in a while this morning.

They say that your dreams have meaning and are usually related to something you may have been thinking about recently, or at least I think they do. Kyla started school yesterday and the thought of having to help her with all of that first grade homework has been terrifying to me. This may have been the inspiration for this dream.

Usually when I have the “back to school nightmare”, I’m back in high school and I’m not a teenager, I’m my adult self. This time, although I was my 40 year old adult self, I was not in high school, I found myself sitting at a desk in the front row of a 4th grade classroom. I’m not really sure why it was 4th grade, but that’s where I was.

The teacher told us to take out our math books and complete all the problems on a certain page. No problem I figured, it’s 4th grade math, and besides, all the answers are in the back of the book, how difficult can it be? Well, it becomes very difficult when you realize that you don’t have your book, and instead of just admitting this to the teacher, you decide to try to fake your way through it. It’s even more difficult when you’re attempting this feat while sitting in the front row, directly in front of the teacher’s desk.

Somehow I managed to do it. The teacher never moved from her desk and never questioned the fact that I did not have my math book in front of me as I spent a grueling 45 minutes sweating it out and scribbling on a piece of paper. As the end of class neared, everyone had to pass their work up to the front row. As I collected all the work in my row, I crumbled up my own “work” and put it in my pocket. I then went up to the teacher’s desk with the stack of everyone else’s work, handed it to her as the bell rang, and then booked it out of the classroom.

Phew! I had done it. I faked my way through the entire class, much like I had done throughout most of high school; which is probably the reason why I usually have these nightmares in the first place, as I’m subconsciously afraid that all of that faking is going to come back and bite me in the ass someday.

Anyway, I faked my way through the entire 45 minutes, fooled the teacher into believing I had done the work, and got out of there without her ever knowing the difference. It was almost too easy; maybe being a 40 year old 4th grader isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

.00014575% Jesus

Currently there are 6,861 songs on my main iPod playlist that I play randomly.

Earlier today, as I was cooling down from my workout, I noticed the old Springsteen Storytellers special from 2005 was on one of the high def channels, so I flipped it on and watched it for a few minutes. After he played "Jesus Was An Only Son" I got up to take a shower.

I went into the bathroom, popped the iPod into the iHome player and hit the playlist. Guess what song came on? If you guessed "Jesus Was An Only Son" you would be correct. According to my calculations there was a .00014575% chance of that happening.

I'm wondering if Jesus, or maybe Bruce, was trying to send me a message of some sort that I missed.

Patriot or Idiot?

At about 4am this morning someone in my neighborhood set off some fireworks. It happened again around 5am. To me this is not patriotic, it's idiotic. Some of us had to get up and go to work this morning. What a bunch of ass holes.

Blood On My Guitar

My company held a blood drive today at our building. I remember a long time ago trying to donate blood and being rejected. I could not remember why I was rejected, but I’ve had it in my head ever since that I am unable to give blood.

Seeing as it was the “Safety Committee” that was sponsoring the blood drive, and I’m a member, I figured it was my duty to try to give blood again. Actually it was more to spare myself the embarrassment of showing up at our next meeting having not given blood at the event that our committee was sponsoring.

So, I went out to the truck and got started with the tests. The first test they do is to prick your finger and take a small sample of blood to make sure there is enough iron in it, which I passed. Next was to take my temperature, which was normal. As the phlebotomist was taking my blood pressure it suddenly dawned on me why I was rejected the last time I tried to give blood.

I’ve been battling high blood pressure for my entire adult life. It’s always been right around the borderline of high, sometimes a little below, sometimes a little above. Today was a high day and I was rejected, again.

You may be asking yourself, what the hell does any of this have to do with blood on my guitar? Well, the first test they did involved pricking my finger. When I got home tonight and started playing guitar the little prick hole started to bleed. I then realized that I was unable to give blood and I had been pricked for nothing.

Why don’t they take your blood pressure before they give you the prick?

When Will They Learn?

I was watching one of Kyla’s kid shows with her yesterday. A high school kid takes an interest in a girl in the school. Instead of just approaching her and starting a conversation, he decides to find out what she’s interested in and then pretends to have the same interests.

He shows up in her karate class and proceeds to get decked by her on her first move. He then gets involved in a conversation with her in which he lies to her about horseback riding and gets her to believe that he knows French by repeating the one phrase he learned.

When will men learn? Don’t these TV characters watch TV? Don’t they see that these types of things never work out? You can not build a relationship that is based on lies. In this case, as in most, it will only be a matter of days before she finds out that she can beat him up with one hand, that the only horse he’s ever ridden was plastic and attached to a pole, and that the only other French phrase he knows is "Le Pew", thanks to the cartoon skunk.

Do guys actually try this in real life? I never did, I wasn’t all that bright when it came to women back then, but I was smart enough to know that something like that wasn’t going to work. My strategy was the exact opposite, I always told them the truth.

That didn’t seem to work out very well either though. Apparently most women did not like to hear what I was “interested in”. I guess the truth hurts; maybe I should have lied to them.

Buy These Tickets or I'll Kill You

According to this article, a convicted murderer was arrested for scalping tickets outside Fenway last night. Listed among the contents found is his pockets were the following:

two tickets to a Red Sox game against the New York Yankees on June 2; three tickets for a Toronto Blue Jays game on July 13; and 16 tickets for Wednesday night's Celtics game against the Philadelphia 76ers

What a dumbass, did he really think that he was going to actually make money on those 16 Celtic tickets?

Backup Caused By Lost Load

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I saw this headline on the news. My first instinct was to think, “That’s not right, a lost load should be clearing a backup, not causing one.” At least that’s always been my experience.

Then the story came on, a tractor-trailer rolled over on I-495, spilling its contents all over the road and causing a traffic jam.

That’s when I realized that it’s all in the context.

That’s also when I realized that it could go either way in the context that I had in mind when I first saw it. Sure a lost load could clear out a backup in the place it is lost from, but it could also cause a backup in the place that received it. I know plenty of mine certainly have.

Ain't Isn't a Word

It ain’t? At least that’s what I was always taught. However as I was perusing my list of songs on my iPod I noticed that there were quite a few of them that had the word “ain’t” in the title.

And after doing a search for the word, I found a total of 40 songs. And those are just song titles, the number of songs that use the word somewhere in the song is uncountable.

I decided to look the word up in my trusty on-line dictionary (I never go anywhere without it, well I never go anywhere where there’s an internet connection without it) and here’s what I found:

ain’t

So, you can say that ain’t ain’t a word if you want to, but you ain’t gonna convince me that it ain’t.

Oh and don’t even start with the word “gonna”, because I found that one in there too.

My Childhood Crushes Are Getting Old

This morning I woke up with this sudden realization: all of my first childhood crushes are old now.

One of the very first that I can remember, way back when I was a wee tot of 6 or 7 in the early 70’s was Emmy Jo on the “New Zoo Revue”. I used to love watching her dancing around and singing with Doug, Freddy, Charlie, and Henrietta. Emily Peden turns 63 this year.

Next in 1976, came one of my all time Saturday morning favorites, I still get all warm and fuzzy thinking about it to this day, “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl”. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do when I saw Electra Woman dressed up in all that tight spandex, but I knew I wanted to do something, the same with Dyna Girl and her pony tails. Deidre Hall turns 60 this year.

At the same time that spandex was ruling my Saturday mornings, 3 new women were coming into my life on the weeknights.

First, was Wonder Woman, tall, dark, and gorgeous, scantily clad in her red, white, and blue costume, complete with high healed boots and bullet deflecting wrist bands, oh my, how I wanted her to tie me up with that magic lasso. Lynda Carter turns 56 this year.

Kelly Garrett was always my favorite “Angel”, and the only one to stick around for the entire 5 year run. I don’t know how that Bosley managed to control himself while constantly being surrounded by so many hot P.I.’s. Jaclyn Smith turns 60 this year.

Steve Austin was cool, especially when you were a 7 year old boy. But once I met his girlfriend, Jaime Summers, I no longer gave a rat’s ass about “The Six Million Dollar Man”. Oh I still watched it, but “The Bionic Woman” was the one for me. Lindsay
Wagner turns 58 this year.

Those are some of my firsts, all of them now into their late 50’s and early 60’s, and still looking great I might add (although I could not find any recent photo’s of Emily Peden), but still getting up there in age and serving as a gentle reminder of my own mortality.

The Flaws of Kong

I finally got around to seeing Peter Jackson’s remake of “King Kong”. Overall, I enjoyed the film, most of the special effects were dazzling, but there were a couple of scenes that just looked a little too hokey to me, the “Brontosaurus Run” for example. Andy Serkis was amazing again, this time, for all intents and purposes, becoming a gorilla.

It is an admirable remake with more depth, Jackson stayed true to the original 1933 version right down to its flaws. To me there were 3 major flaws in this story, there are actually many more than that, but there are 3 big ones that stand out to me.

The first one is; how did they get a 25 foot, who knows how many tons, giant gorilla onto that ship? The answer is, I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, because they never showed it. In both versions of the movie it skips right over that scene, going from the scene where Kong is subdued on Skull Island, right back to New York and the opening night of the show.

Sure the argument can be made that it was skipped over for time constraints, but I think it’s fairly important to the story. If you’re not going to show me how they did it, then at least tell me at some point.

I mentioned something similar in this entry, watching a fantasy movie like this, you have to have a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, but for me, that suspension can only go so far.

If you want to tell me that somewhere on this earth there is an island inhabited by giant insects and rodents, prehistoric creatures, a 25 foot gorilla, and a bunch of savage natives who worship it, I’m down with that. You don’t have to do much talking to convince me that it’s out there. But if you’re going to tell me that a bunch of sailors, a movie producer, and an actor in the 1930’s, somehow managed to pick up that gorilla and put it onto the ship, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need some proof. Like I said, if you’re not going to show me how it was done, then you at least have to tell me.

The second flaw to me is this: its night time and the Broadway show starring Kong is beginning. The actual start time of the show is not noted, but I’m assuming that it has to be sometime around 8 or 9 pm. About twenty minutes into the show, Kong breaks free and goes on his rampage in Manhattan. Approximately a half an hour later he climbs the Empire State Building.

About an hour elapses from the time the Broadway show begins to the time that Kong gets to the top of the Empire State Building. It doesn’t seem to me that they are implying that any more time than this goes by, yet Kong and Darrow watch the sun rise together from the top of the building. Soon after that it is full daylight when the bi-planes arrive and begin to attack. What did I miss here? By my estimations this movie went from 8-9 pm to 5-6 am in the span of an hour. Can someone please explain that one to me?

The third and final flaw to me is the most egregious. A bunch of people discover an island inhabited by giant insects and rodents, prehistoric creatures, and a 25 foot gorilla. They manage to capture the gorilla and bring it back to the states. The reason for this would seem to be greed, at least in Carl Denham’s case, as it is all about the fame and fortune for him. It is never really stated why the rest of them agreed to it, but it is assumed that it was for the money as well.

This is all well and good, bringing a giant gorilla back to the states and putting it on display for the entire world to see is certainly going to be a money maker. But here’s what I don’t get, why the hell didn’t any of them tell anyone else about this island? Denham tells a story about how they found Kong on an island, subdued him, and brought him back, but he never makes any mention at all about what else occupied the island. Didn’t it occur to any of them that people are going to want to know about this place? If they were motivated by money, I have to believe that someone would have been willing to pay them big bucks for the location of Skull Island and the existence of its other occupants.

It couldn’t have been that they were afraid that no one would believe them; after all, they just brought a 25 foot gorilla back from the place. That right there should be enough to convince someone to go check it out. What have they got to lose? Even if no one is willing to give them any money until after they see it for themselves, the worst case scenario is that they never get paid, but by not telling anyone, they guarantee that they never make any money from it.

And that’s assuming that greed is the only motivation. I have to think that at least one of the other people on that ship is going to think that it’s probably a good idea to let people know that this place exists, regardless of whether or not he can make any money from it. I think that I would have anyway.

Get Back Loratadine

I have been allergic to dust and dust mites since I was eighteen, and I have been taking some sort of medication for it on a daily basis since. Without the medication my nose is stuffy and runny, I get post-nasal drip, and my eyes get itchy and watery; all of this causing a lot of sniffling, sneezing, nose-blowing, and coughing.

My “drug of choice” for as long as I can remember has been Claritin D, or more specifically, loratadine. It wasn’t the first one I used, but I’ve been using it for so long that I can’t even remember what I used before it.

It works well for me, keeping me semi-normal most of the time, the symptoms are never completely gone, I still flare up during pollen season, and I still have occasional days when I wish my nose would just go away, but overall, it helps a great deal and I’ve been very happy with it.

At least I was until a couple of years ago when it went from a prescription only drug to an over the counter drug. Apparently this was a good thing for many people, but I wasn’t one of them. I can see how people who only need to use it occasionally would find it easier to just walk into a pharmacy, supermarket, or department store and pick up a package whenever they need to, instead of having to obtain a prescription first, but those of us who use it on a regular basis got screwed.

You see, it was just as easy for me to get my doctor to write a prescription, refillable up to 12 times, once a year, then refill it once a month and go pick it up, so this change did not make it anymore convenient. What it did make it is more expensive.

When it was a prescription only drug, I made a $10 co-payment for a 30 day supply. Now that it’s over the counter, even buying the CVS brand and using coupons, I pay about $10 for a box of 15; which is basically double the price. I went from paying $10 a month for a 30 day prescription, to paying about $20 a month for two 15 count boxes. And to make things even worse, apparently there is something in this drug that is being used to make illegal drugs, so it is now being restricted to one box per person. So, not only do I have to pay twice as much to get it, but I have to go in to get it twice as often. This is not more convenient.

So, what was a great relationship for a long time had recently become rocky and I decided that maybe it was time for a change. I discussed the options with my doctor and he recommended that I try Allegra. So I did it, I broke off a long-term relationship and got involved in a new one.

Things got off to a great start, I was now back to 30 day prescriptions at $10 co-payments and I was happy. Unfortunately, what started off so promising went downhill in a hurry. Even though this new relationship was less of a hassle and costing me less money, I was not being satisfied.

My symptoms were getting worse. By the end of the first 30 day supply I had a stuffy, runny nose, itchy, watery eyes, and post nasal drip. I was sniffling, blowing, sneezing, and coughing. It seemed as though the Allegra was almost completely ineffective, but I was saving money and it was easier to obtain, so I tried to stick it out. I thought that maybe I just needed some time for it to take effect. After about halfway through the second prescription I knew that this was just not going to work out. My fling was over.

Yesterday I went crawling back to loratadine. The switch paid immediate dividends as my symptoms began to clear up almost right away. Now I’m right back to where I was 2 months ago, paying twice as much money and going in to get it twice as often, but this time I am happy to do it. Some relationships are worth the extra time and money.

Love and Happiness

Love and Happiness played on my iPod yesterday. As I was listening to the lyrics I was thinking about how true they ring. You can see all of them here, but I’m talking about these ones specifically:

And they’re tearing down walls
In the name of peace
And they’re killing each other
In the Middle East

They raise the price of oil
And they censor our mouths
If you are a young couple today
Forget buying a house
And we wage our wars
In the neighborhoods
We kill the young to feed the old
And man that ain’t no good

So you’re thinking, yep that’s pretty much the way things are today. But you know what? John Mellencamp released this song in 1991. That’s right, 16 years ago. Shouldn’t that stuff be ancient history by now?

Not only have we made no progress in the last 16 years, we haven’t even been able to maintain the status quo, things have gotten even worse.

All of this hit me as I was listening to this song and I was just shaking my head and thinking, what the hell kind of world are we living in?

The Original Fire Has Died and Gone

About a month ago, Chris Cornell left Audioslave, and as much as I love Audioslave, I don’t really care that much. The fact is, it’s not so much Audioslave’s music that I love; it’s Cornell’s. He wrote it all, just like he did with all the music from Soundgarden and his two solo albums (second one forthcoming in June). And it really doesn’t matter what he does next, whether it’s to continue solo, or form a new band, he’s going to write the music and surround himself with good musicians to record it, and I’ll probably like it. Besides, 7 years and 3 albums is a long time for a super group to stay together.

Would the music he’s made over the past 7 years been different if he didn’t have Rage Against the Machine as his backup band? Of course it would have, he wrote that music with those 3 guys in mind. Different but most likely still good and I still probably would have listened to it and enjoyed it. Although we’ll probably get a sense of what that music would have been like without the band when he releases his new album in June, consisting of music he wrote during that time which did not fit the Audioslave mold.

Anyway, although I knew he left the band, I only just now got around to finding out why, or at least supposedly why, according to sources from the New York Post that claim it was over money. Apparently Cornell was not happy with the fact that he wrote all the music, but the four of them split the money equally. IF this is true, it’s pretty petty of him.

I mean seriously, how much money do you need? Is he still having fun making music with this band? If the answer is no then that’s a different story, it’s time to move on. But if the answer is yes, than so what if you’re splitting the money equally with your band mates even though you did all the writing. It’s not like you did extra work that you normally wouldn’t have done and you should be paid more for it. You were writing that stuff regardless and you happened to have 3 great musicians to play and record it with. Get over yourself dammit, and just enjoy writing and playing your music and having fun with it. I wish I had half the ability you have.

Anyway, rant over. It’s too bad it had to go down this way because I’m sure they still had a lot of good music left in them together. But then again, although I definitely liked all 3 of their albums, I admit that I liked each one a little less than the previous one, so maybe this is for the best.

“Rage” is getting back together to do a benefit show in April and although they’re claiming it’s a one-time thing, Tom Morello isn’t ruling out future collaborations. That’s good news for “Rage” fans, although personally I’m not one of them.

As for us Cornell fans, it probably doesn’t matter who he’s making music with, it’ll most likely be good and we’ll most likely like it. I just wish the guy didn’t have to be such an ass about it.

An Announcement About Nothing

Apparently Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel’s name has been discussed as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2008.

On March 7, 2007, Senator Hagel's office announced that he would make an appearance in his home state to "discuss his future plans”. Speculation at the time was that this announcement could entail anything from a run at the presidency in 2008, a 2008 Senatorial re-election campaign, or plans to leave the political sphere after his current term in the Senate expires.

Yesterday he gathered the press together in Omaha for a nationally televised conference, stepped up to the podium, and announced, "I am here today to announce that my family and I will make a decision on my political future later this year."

You gotta love politics, where a person can attract all kinds of national media attention and then make a statement about nothing. Maybe this guy’s been watching too much “Seinfeld”.

See Ya Later Alligator

Could someone please explain to me why anyone would want to keep a 6 foot, 125 pound alligator in their basement? I know about the stories of people buying baby alligators as pets and then getting rid of them once they start getting too big and people realize that they do not make good pets. I never understood why these people did not have the foresight to realize this in the first place.

But at least in most cases, they do realize it and get rid of the thing. What the hell were these people thinking? I don’t care if it was your brothers and he died, you don’t keep the alligator to honor his memory. He shouldn’t have had it in the first place.

Never mind the fact that it’s dangerous, it also must have been a bitch to feed, not to mention expensive. It’s also not fair to the alligator; which was cooped up in a 12x8 Plexiglas cage and did not have enough water to submerge in.

The alligator appeared to be “well-nourished and had good muscle tone”, but I can’t believe that it actually got enough to eat, at least not as much as it would have in the wild; which may have been evidenced by the fact that it was about 4 feet shorter than the average alligator of it’s age. And regardless, what the hell kind of life is that, living in a 12x8 Plexiglas enclosure? Did these people think that they were actually treating the alligator well?

Apparently they were not too happy about losing the alligator. Are you fucking kidding me? Are they going to miss all those nights of snuggling up with it, all the belly rubs, and all those days of playing fetch?

And apparently there are quite a few other people in this town (and I’m sure in many others) keeping alligators as pets. I would love to be able to understand what goes on in the minds of people like this.

As disturbing to me as this is, here’s a quote from one of the articles I linked too that might be even more disturbing:

"We've learned how to deal with everything from monkeys to elephants, alligators, snakes — a lot of exotic animals," Rooks said. "There's a whole slew of critters that are not legal."

Did that guy say elephants?

Dirty Cops Suck

I don’t know why, but for some reason I woke up this morning with this thought in my head, dirty cops are among the lowest form of scum on this earth. If they are not the lowest, they are definitely near the top of the list.

At least with most other types of law offenders, you can take steps to protect yourself and your children. Sure it may not always work, but you know what’s out there and what you need to do to avoid becoming a victim.

But if you ever find yourself in a position where you are in need of the services, or in the custody, of a police officer, or any other type of law enforcement agent, and that agent is not on the level, there is nothing you can do. You are supposed to be able to trust these people and if you are in a situation involving one of them, you are at their mercy and can do nothing but trust them and hope that they are going to do the right thing.

I’m not necessarily going anywhere with this, like I said, it’s just a thought that happened to be in my head when I woke up and I decided to write it down here to point out how much I think scumbags like this suck.

The Guest That Wouldn't Leave

Over the weekend the city of Boston was visited by the great aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy. The JFK is scheduled to be decommissioned later this month in Florida, and then it will be stored in Philadelphia until they decide what to do with it.

I have heard some suggestions that since its namesake was born right here in the city of Brookline, that maybe Boston should become its permanent home as a museum. I think that’s a great idea and I’m onboard with it (pun intended). Unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen, or maybe it is.

This ship was supposed to leave on Monday afternoon, however a mechanical malfunction delayed its departure and the ship stayed in port until Tuesday. Yesterday, because of high winds, its departure was delayed for yet another day.

They’ll try to get out of here again today. It looks like today’s winds will not be anywhere near what they were yesterday, but we’ll see what happens.

I think somebody is trying to tell us something, that maybe the idea of the JFK staying in Boston permanently isn’t such a bad idea after all.

I Hate Jigsaw Puzzles

I just helped Kyla put together a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle, I CAN NOT STAND jigsaw puzzles, I absolutely despise them. There are not many other things on this earth that I consider to be a bigger waste of valuable time. It’s just a picture on a piece of cardboard that has been chopped up into a certain number of pieces and has to be put back together again. If you didn’t chop it up to begin with, I wouldn’t have to waste my time putting it back together.

I can see the appeal of it for kids. I remember as a kid putting some together up at my grandmother’s house and feeling a sense of accomplishment when I was done. But as I got older I found that there were millions of other things that I would much rather be spending my time doing.

Kyla is at a stage in her life where she enjoys putting them together. She has a bunch of them and every once in a while she pulls a couple out and works on them. Although she’s perfectly capable of completing them herself, she often asks for help, mostly because she likes doing things together then because she actually needs help. Of course I enjoy spending time with her, but I dread hearing those words, “daddy can you help me?”, when I see here sitting at the table working on a jigsaw puzzle. I would much rather hear her say something like, “daddy can I inject you with a dose of hyoscine-pentothal?”, or “daddy, can I strap you into this iron maiden?”.

That’s right, if you ever need to torture me for information, or just for the sheer pleasure of it, all you have to do is lock me up in an empty room with nothing but a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and the instructions that I will not be let out of the room until I either complete the puzzle or give up the information.