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October 25, 2007
As you can see, there
hasn't been much to pass along during the past few months. Mike Hargrove's
retirement (though possibly temporary) was a shocker and I'm entirely sure the
team fully recovered. I wish him well, however. I'm also shocked (as are most
baseball fans from what I can tell) that the World Series matchup is Colorado
and Boston. If Colorado can finish the Cinderella story (sorry, Boston fans, but
you won't get to try on that slipper again until sometime around the year 2060),
it would continue our (my wife and I) streak of seeing teams in other parks that
went on to win the World Series that same season. Even if Boston wins again
(which, for me, is still a happier ending than if the Yankees or Angels had won
it all), our streak of seeing teams out of town who reach the Series is
still intact. We were at Yankee Stadium in 1996 and again in 2000. We were in
Anaheim in 2002. We were in Boston in 2004. And our only out-of-town trip this
year was Colorado.
If only that magic extended to the hometown team.
The Mariners may have to say goodbye to Jose Guillen and/or
Jose Vidro (thanks for the effort this season, though, fellas) in order to
afford the starting pitching that they need more. It seemed like the M's 2007
rotation was Felix, Miguel Batista and three #5 starters. Can't make the
playoffs throwing that combination out there on a regular basis.
As of right now, we're planning trips to Hawaii (Huskies
football scheduled for December 1st) and Iowa (relatives). Next year, a new
baseball park opens in the DC area for the Nationals. We may have to wait awhile
to go back there because we still haven't seen the new parks in Cincinnati and
St. Louis. Maybe by 2009 or 2010 we'll head back east to see the new DC park and
the new parks in NYC.
We also moved three blocks away from where we used to live in
Bothell. Just hanging out over here on the east side of the street gives
everything an "edgy" feel.
Or maybe not.
In the future, I hope to update this more often. I have a lot
of catching up to do.
July 5, 2007
We just got back from Denver, Colorado, and our 39th major-league baseball park.
It was as visually interesting as I'd heard. The area itself, however, is an
entirely different story. Too far west to be "Midwest", too far north to be
"South", too far east to be a real "Western" state, it tries -- and succeeds --
to be a little bit of everything. We toured the Coors Brewery and saw two
Rockies games. Not sure when the pictures from those games will be up on this
site. I'm still about 19 parks behind. The Montreal page is done and Toronto is
next.
The Mariners have had an interesting season so far. Jose
Guillen and Jose Vidro have worked out very well, but Horacio Ramirez hasn't. I
don't believe we're missing Meche or Pineiro and it looks like a good thing that
the M's didn't pick up Zito, Schmidt or Matsuzaka. It sure would be nice to work
some playoff games this year.
January 1, 2007
Now it's time for the
annual listing of people (those I've heard of who are connected to movies and/or
television) that passed away during 2006. They will all be missed, but will live
as long as there are movies and/or television.
Lou Rawls, Shelley Winters, Tony Franciosa, Wilson
Pickett, Christopher Penn, Coretta Scott King, Al Lewis, Andreas Katsulas,
Octavia Butler, Don Knotts, Dennis Weaver, Darren McGavin, Jack Wild, Kirby
Puckett, Dana Reeve, Gordon Parks, Maureen Stapleton, Richard Fleischer, Buck
Owens, Stanislaw Lem, Paul Gleason, Shohei Imamura, Billy Preston, June Allyson,
Barnard Hughes, Red Buttons, Jack Warden, Bruno Kirby, Glenn Ford, Steve Irwin,
Sven Nykvist, Buck O'Neil, Jane Wyatt, Joe Niekro, Adrienne Shelly, Basil
Poledouris, Jack Palance, Peter Boyle, James Brown, and Gerald Ford.
Thanks for the entertainment, folks.
December 25, 2006
Someday, I hope my day job
starts to slow down just a little bit. For now, though, the time away just flies
by and the next thing I know, another year is almost over and I haven't added
anything to this site since late in the baseball season.
So let me esplain...no, there is too much. Let me sum
up.
Congrats to the St. Louis Cardinals for winning the
World Series. I suppose the real underdog would've been the Detroit Tigers, but
the final four teams (including Oakland and the NY Mets) had all won rings in
the 80s, so unlike 2004 and 2005, there was no real title drought/curse that
ended when the season did. St. Louis is a great baseball town, though, and
they're not the Yankees, so I'm fine with the results.
The Mariners finished in last place for the third year
in a row and the ownership has decided to give the GM and manager one more
season before heads start rolling. Then they go out and get Jose Guillen, Jose
Vidro and Horacio Ramirez. I don't think I'll regret seeing Meche and Pineiro
move on to other teams, but if the goal for 2007 is to fill the seats and keep
Ichiro out of Bronx pinstripes, the goal hasn't been reached yet.
Three months gone by since the last post and three
movies seen away from home. I'm hoping that 2007 brings more trips to the
theater, but looking back on 2006, I guess I was kinda busy (trips to
California, DC and the UK during the spring and summer). I missed some good
ones, though, and I hope I can get out more next year.
One of these days, I'll actually get around to adding
another baseball-park page, but I'm still stuck on how to describe my time in
Montreal and Toronto.
In the meantime, happy holidays, and I hope everyone
that reads this has a great 2007 -- and that the Mariners finally start
contending. I miss working playoff games.
September 11, 2006
I suppose I
could've picked a more inconspicuous date to finally add another website entry,
but it just so happened I had a lot of time this past weekend to update my
seriously-way-behind movie page. My last main-page post was right before we left
for our weeklong trip to Scotland and England and we had a great time. We
probably took about 800 pictures and we're still sorting through them, trying to
figure out what's what and where's this and so on. We took full advantage of the
UK's fantastic train, bus, and London subway system. Sure, it might have been
exciting to try driving (or in my case, navigating) from the other side of the
road and the other side of the front seat, but why take any chances? We also
took a short weekend trip to Washington DC during the Fourth of July weekend to
knock baseball park #38 (RFK) off our list. Nothing special there, though,
except the kind of thunderstorm this part of the country should have more often.
And speaking of baseball, the
Mariners are all but mathematically eliminated. Of course, it's not as if this
team was going to go far in the playoffs, but the crazy up-and-down stretches
have been maddening for most fans around here. They go 0-11 on a road trip and
then come back home to win 7 out of 9, etc. So it will be another October
without local major-league baseball to kick around -- and as long as the Yankees
don't win yet another World Series, it won't be a wasted baseball season.
Maybe someday, I'll even manage to
put up another baseball-park page someday. Montreal's Olympic Stadium continues
to vex me, though. Perhaps it's the French parts I'm having trouble with.
May 23, 2006
...and before I knew it, there was an even longer gap between this post and the
previous one. Where does the time go?
Since March 11th, we've had two
elections at work (outlying areas, but still a lot of paperwork followed by
attempts to clear the backlog that piles up right before those elections), a
weekend in Disneyland (first time there since 1997 -- hasn't changed much), and
only three movies: V for Vendetta (go see it), Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
(go see it, but find a sitter for the really young kids), and Mission:
Impossible III (Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman and a lot of things
blowing up).
On the sports side, the Mariners are
trying to get back to .500, but the whole division basically sucks, so they're
only three games out while several of the hometown boppers are doing their best
Pete O'Brien impressions.
One of these days, I'll actually
finish another baseball-park page, but it will have to wait until we get back
from our first real vacation since July of 2004 (Philadelphia, DC and Boston).
And now for something completely different -- eight days in Scotland and
England.
I hope the language barrier isn't too
much to overcome. The weather waiting for us appears to be identical to the kind
we're used to around here. We're also hoping to better representatives of our
country than certain elected officials that I don't believe I need to mention.
March 11, 2006
A one-two punch (might not
be the most appropriate phrase to use, but it's all I can think of) of not much
happening and home-computer problems has left me with a huge gap between
postings. Movie-wise, I'm off to a slow start in 2006, but I'm hoping to get out
more often as the weather and the movies get better. Since my last post on New
Year's Day, the movie world has seen the passing of Shelley Winters, Tony
Franciosa, Chris Penn, Al Lewis, Andreas Katsulas, Don Knotts, Dennis Weaver,
Darren McGavin and Gordon Parks. A lot of names already, but we can still see
them in the movies.
The Mariners are off to a rough start
in spring training, but I'm hoping it will lead to a contending season. Managers
need to look at a lot of people who aren't going to make the major-league roster
and a lot of the good players are off playing in the World Baseball Classic, so
I think this spring counts even less than it normally does. I believe the M's
will do OK this year and hang in the race until around Labor Day. If they get a
few breaks they haven't had in a while, this season might even be more
interesting when football season rolls around again.
As for Barry Bonds, it appears the
truth is out about his steroid usage. Anyone who has seen pictures of him as a
rookie and pictures of him now shouldn't be surprised to hear that he spent a
lot of time and money getting bigger. Even if he passes Hank Aaron on the
all-time homerun list, an asterisk will always follow his career performance. I
was amused by a comment from a sports columnist who said (paraphrasing) that it
was strangely appropriate that Bonds broke McGwire's single-season homer record
at Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park) in Houston.
January 1, 2006
Happy New Year, everyone! Go Seahawks! (I know it's not baseball, but it's
local)
The November general election went
very well out here (not because my choices won or anything, but because it
appears the results were much clearer than last year) and the job is still
fairly interesting. Unfortunately, because I was hired after so many other
people there, I was one of a handful of folks who couldn't take any time off
during the holidays and -- therefore -- it hasn't really felt we've made much
headway on the backlog of work that needs to be done very soon. I guess overtime
pay is still a good thing, but I'm really looking forward to my next day off.
I finally got caught up on my movie
reviews and I've added four to the movie page. I've left the older ones up
there, though, because they're all recent DVD releases, so who knows, someone
might come along and read my comments before owning one of those movies. It was
around this time a year ago that I saw White Noise and I'm hoping my next
bad movie is still a ways off.
On the baseball side, the Mariners
made a couple of interesting moves. Jarrod Washburn should be an upgrade
replacing Ryan Franklin. Carl Everett should be a power threat in left field, at
first base and designated hitter, and he should definitely stand out in that
locker room. I'm also curious to see how the M's ad guys use his personality in
the 2006 commercials. I've read recently that Everett doesn't believe dinosaurs
ever existed nor that we've put men on the moon. While I can't vouch for the
certainty of extraterrestrial road trips, hasn't he ever seen Jurassic Park?
Finally, I've decided to start an
annual tradition on this site by posting the names of all of the movie and TV
celebrities (the ones I've heard of and will miss) who passed away during the
past 12 months. Already, I hope next year's list will be smaller...
Amrish Puri (second Indiana Jones
movie), Ruth Warrick (Citizen Kane and "All My Children"), Virginia Mayo
(55 movies dating back to 1939), Johnny Carson, John Vernon (Animal House),
Ossie Davis (Do The Right Thing), Dan O'Herlihy (Last Starfighter),
Sandra Dee, Debralee Scott ("Welcome Back, Kotter"), Mason Adams (F/X),
Frank Gorshin, Eddie Albert, Anne Bancroft, Lane Smith (Distinguished
Gentleman), Paul Winchell (voice of "Tigger" in all of those classic "Pooh"
cartoons), Pat McCormick (Smokey & The Bandit), "Double Duty" Radcliffe
(baseball legend), Brock Peters (Star Trek VI), Chris Schenkel (TV
bowling), Robert Wise, Nipsey Russell (TV game shows), Louis Nye (comedian),
Rosa Parks, Michael Piller (Star Trek), Pat Morita, Wendie Jo
Sperber, Richard Pryor, John Spencer ("The West Wing"), and Vincent Schiavelli.
Thanks, folks.
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