Spring Break Play Date

Well, today is the first day of Gracie's very first spring break. She is incredibly excited because Gracie is having a Daisy friend (Daisies are the kindergarten equivalent to Brownies) come over for a play date. The little girl is named Rachel and her and Gracie get along great. We've always had concerns because in the past when Gracie has been around other kids she is extremely bossy. I think this has to do with the fact that Gracie was pretty much an only child (let's be honest, Megan hasn't been a child for some time now) and frankly acted the part whenever she got around other kids. This meant that she always tried to dictate what they were going to do and when they were going to do it. I really think that kindergarten has done her a lot of good in developing her social skills. She seems to have quite a few friends and still enjoys going to school everyday. I hope that sticks with her. Like every parent I want to see my little girl succeed.

Anyway, Rachel is coming over and Gracie is going to have the opportunity to play gracious host. I just hope she doesn't revert back to that bossy little girl that used to live in my house.

I'm not sure what they have planned. I have a feeling it is going to involve a lot of Barbie dolls or Polly Pockets or My Little Ponies. Regardless there are a couple of things I can pretty much guarantee:

1. My house is going to be a disaster
2. Balin is going to get yelled at by his sister for getting into the middle of whatever they are playing with
3. I'm going to be hiding in my den watching baseball while Angie deals with that mess.

Tomorrow I will update you all on how the paly date went. It should be a good time.

Opening Day is Finally Here!

It seems like it has been forever since the last real games were played, but finally, opening day of the Major League Baseball season is here. Those who know me understand that this ranks up there with the best holidays of the year. People wonder why I have so much passion for the sport. Truthfully, opening day is about more than just baseball. Winter is such a long, drawn out season. It is cold, it is dark and dreery. Opening day signals the beginning of spring, or warm weather and sunny days. Opening day brings me a feeling of relief, that I've made it through the worst and that the better days of the year are right around the corner. It is a symbol of spring and warm nights with a cool breeze. It is a reminder of nights where you prop the windows open, turn off all the lights except for the glow of the television, cuddle up with your little girl and watch a few innings of baseball as the twilight receeds.

I remember going to an opening day game at Tiger stadium. It was my very first professional baseball game that I saw in person. I swear the grass of the outfield wash the pallet from which the color green was pulled. I've never seen a more brillant color, glistening in a bright sunshine. Only the grass of the Garden of Eden itself could have rivaled the color I saw that day. It carved an indelible memory in my brain which I harken back to year after year.

Today the weather in Detroit calls for sprinkles with an overcast sky, chilly 50 degree temperatures, yet there is no question that spring has gotten off the bus with the rest of the Tigers who have made the trip up from Lakeland Florida.

I've taken a half day vacation today, as I do every year on opening day. The one year I didn't I couldn't get anything done at work anyways as I spent most of my time trying to figure out what was going on in the game. All I can say is that I am happy that today is here. You may not be a big baseball fan, but everyone should rejoice, the winter of 2007/08 is behind us. Welcome to spring.

A Quick Thought on High Gas Prices

I think I'm pretty much in tune with what is going on in the world. I listen to talk radio all day at work and on the way home. I watch the news in the morning and evening, read the paper and surf a variety of news sites on the computer. There is one thing that raises questions with me, and that is the idea of fluctuating gas prices.

Whenever there is a significant jump in gas prices you can usually tell beforehand that it is coming. Typically in the morning I hear news reports on the price of barrels of crude are going for. Typically when they announce a significant increase in crude prices, I can expect a significant jump in the prices at the pump. This isn't rocket science, I think everyone can probably figure this out.

The question I have is "why doesn't this work the other way as well?" I noticed on the news a few weeks ago that the price of crude jumped close to $10.00 a barrel. Shortly thereafter the gas station down the street raised it's prices by about 20 cents a gallon. Early this past week the same news program announced that the price of crude had dropped by $10.00 a barrel. That left me to expect a drop in gas prices of around 20 cents a gallon. That makes sense, right? Wrong. Three days after hearing this news report, the gas station down the street dropped the price per gallon from $3.29 to $3.25 a gallon. I wonder why this whole economic principle of supply and demand doesn't work when it comes to gasoline? Just a thought to ponder today.

Obama in Pennsylvania

Let's get this out in the open: I have completely thrown my support behind Barack Obama in the upcoming Presidential elections. I just got done reading an article about Obama and his campaign in the state of Pennsylvania (read the article by clicking here). Anyway, it got me thinking about the elections.

These are some pretty intense elections, but I don't think people who support Hillary Clinton are aware of why she is running. It is pretty evident when you look at where she is now however, unless you are jade and want her to win regardless. Hillary is up against a wall. She trails in the popular vote by 700,000 votes. She trails in the number of state primaries won by a considerable amount. She trails in the overall delegate count by approximately 120 votes depending on what results you look at. Yet even in the face of all of this, she continues to campaign.

Pundits are claiming that the growing negativity of the campaign has given Hillary a boost yet it is also affecting the ability of the Democrats to run in the fall against John McCain. It is going to take amonumental collapse by Obama to lose the delegate race and the popular vote, yet Hillary is hedging her bets on the idea that she can convince the superdelegates to vote for her at the convention this summer. Now, if that was to happen, people are saying it would destroy the Democrats' faith in their party. Now what does that say about Hillary Clinton? To me it says that she is willing to make sweeping sacrifices of the party just to win the nomination and an opportunity to face McCain in November. Doesn't this spit in the face of the American poliical ideal? Our candidates are suppose to represent us because of what they can do for our country. Hillary has a personal agenda. I really do believe as a liberated woman it is more about her proving to the world that she can do it, rather than doing it to help America. Do you really believe that sacrificing the strength of the Democratic Party is worth buoying the ego of one woman? I don't.

Obama has vision. Hillary has hindsight. She runs on the platform of "we'll do it the way Bill did it for his eight years". Yet, he was far from perfect. Obama is moving forward, and to me shows the same vision as world changers like Roosevelt, Kennedy and Eisenhower. Those are the kind of politics we need. It isn't enough to make small changes to the political landscape. We need profound vision, someone to push for sweeping change. We need a new policy regarding energy, moving us away from oil reliance and towards something that will grow our economy. America is on a threshold, one that coudl allow us to change the world and only one candidate is willing to take us into that unexplored realm.

Pennsylvania is going to be important. Obama will need to try to strengthen his bond with the labor unions and try to win the working class by showing his endorsements by the Teamsters and other strong labor organizations if he is going to have any chance in that state. He wins Pennsylvania and hopefully Hillary will realize that she is doing nothing but hurting the democrats chance of putting their own President in the White House.

My Little Author

As a project for school, our daughter, Gracie, had to write her own book complete with illustrations. She spent a lot of time writing The Mermaid that Explored the Sea. It was acute little story. I had to teach her how to draw a mermaid and while it was hard to not help her on the story, I helped walk her through deciding what she wanted to put down on paper. It ended up being a cute little book.

Well, she handed her book in this past Monday and yesterday she brought home a letter stating that her book had been chosen as the best in her class. She was chosen as one of 5 kindergarteners from her school to go to a young authors conference sometime in April. I am so proud of her. She is such a smart little girl and loves to do "projects" like coloring, modeling with clay, painting, and other art projects. When you see one of your children receive recognition (other than that showered on her by her family) it really makes you feel good. I really don't think that she understands how big a deal this is. Regardless, I'm looking forward to taking the time to go to her young author's conference (where she will be presenting her book to all the other kids in Fort Wayne (as well as professional authors and teachers). It really makes me feel good.

I love being a parent. There really is nothing greater in this world than that. Mt son and daughters are my greatest treasures and while life doesn't always offer a lot of personal "wins", by having children you get to experience all of their joys as well. It makes life so fulfilling sharing life with them.

Bloodstone Borders Week 1

Well, I played my first game of the spring season of the new Warmachine/Hordes league. Needless to say it was a game I would rather forget. I did learn a few things and hopefully I can improve on my performance next week. I played against Alan the 2nd, arguably the best player in the league and he ended up smoking me. Typically when I run my Circle army I do pretty well. This time I didn't. I made a huge mistake with my army composition because I didn't think things out ahead of time. I chose to play with Kruegar (who is a great all-around caster) and with Kromac. Now Kromac is nice, but when you play with him you need to make sure you play against another Hordes army, otherwise you completely throw away your feat. Alan played a Khador army, so throwing away my feat is what I did. The really weaken Kromac who can end up being a glass cannon even with his feat. He is brutal for one turn, and then he comes back down to earth.

I also made a couple of mistakes with my army makeup. I ran with my wolf riders and while they are nice models and a ton of fun, they are not really effective against the heavily armored Khador force. Even with their prey (Uhlans) they were not able to put a dent in their armor. I would have been better served bringing an additional unit of Tharn Ravagers and/or a unit of Bloodtrackers. Each of them could have been much more effective than the quick but light hitting riders.

The last mistake I made was getting my warbeasts too far up into the mix. I was overlay agressive and while I did considerable damage with my Tharn Ravager unit and my war beasts versus his Ironfang Pikemen and his Widowmakers (one Tharn took out the entire unit of Widows in one turn). My warbeasts were then very susceptable to the attacks of the Kodiak charge and the Spriggan charge. It was brutal. The Kodiak took out two of my heavy warbeasts in consecutive turns. I need to make sure I play with that warjack when I break out my Khador again. That thing is by far one of the nastiest models I've ever faced. I had no idea they could be that brutal in hand to hand.

Oh, one other mistake I made was getting Kruegar into the counter-charge threat range of his Drahkun. I took a nasty charge from him on my turn and nearly lost my warlock. I ended up sluffing the damage off onto my Woldwatcher, killing it, when I didn't really need to get that close to his model.

On a positive note, I was able to score three VP for killing solos, which currently puts me in the running to win the award for that particular category. I don't feel I need to win the overall, but I would like to eventually win one of the 4 ribbons. They look pretty cool.

Next week I am going to think a bit more about my army composition. I wanted to try a couple of things this time around and it didn't really work out. I need to stick with some of my normal models, ones that I know, and then maybe I'll make a much better showing.

4 Days Left

This has been the longest winter I can ever remember. It seems like it turned cold in October and we haven't had a break from the snow/rain/sleet mix since then. It does my heart good to know that baseball season starts in a mere four days.

I've already asked for and been granted opening day off (which has become a bit of a tradition for me). The Tigers play the Royals at 1:05pm and I plan on being at home, sitting on my couch watching every single pitch. Angie, my wife, has to be aware of the fact that if she tries to pull me away from my den she is going to get an earful. I've already informed her that I was not coming home to watch my son, or change his diaper or play with him or take out the trash or fold the clothes or anything having to do with anything other than eating food that is bad for me and watching baseball.

That said, the Tigers are beginning to worry me a bit this year. Curtis Granderson is out for about three weeks because of a broken finger, Gary Sheffield hasn't hit anything this spring, Dontrelle Willis can't find the strike zone to save himself and when he does, the opposing team knocks the ball all over the place and Todd "Crashcart" Jones has been so horrible this spring that I anticipate many palpatations whenever he is called in from the bullpen.

There hasn't been a whole lot of positives this spring, but that said, the Tigers still have an extremely dangerous team. If they can find some of the form in their rotation and bullpen that they had two years ago, they could be a juggernaut. I have a feeling that Justin Verlander is going to have an incredible year. Along that lines, Nate Robertson has looked very good this spring and if he can give them his best year the Tigers are going to be tough to beat.

As far as batters go, Curtis Granderson has some catching up to do once he gets off the DL. I hope Brandon Inge takes this opportunity and really opens some eyes across the league. I would love to see him get traded and get the opportunity to play third base everyday. Inge may not be able to hit the ball, but he is an incredible fielder and there is nothing I enjoy more than watching someone on the hot corner make a sensational play. Inge has made plenty of those over the last couple of year.

The 3, 4, 5 of the order should just do some serious raking, but I think it is Carlos Guillen batting 6th that is going to have the best year. I think he will stay healthy, and while he hits a moderate amount of homers, he is going to have all kinds of baserunners out there to drive in this year. That part of the lineup is going to be scary for opposing pitchers.

Well, I really can't wait until the season starts. The little taste of the Japanese series between Boston and Oakland was good, but did not appease my appetite for the regular season. Greatest day of 2008 is March 31st. I kno where I'll be.

Missing Hughie

It is a bit of a frustrating day. Just as some background, we put my dog, Hughie, a twelve year old Bassett Hound to sleep last year on May 2nd. I've missed him quite a bit since then. He was a great dog and I know I will never be able to replace him. I have been wanting another one though, mostly because I miss his company. I know they are a lot of work, but I really think they are worth it.


Anyway, I've had plenty of opportunities to get other Bassett Hounds. It culminated yesterday when the local animal shelter got a 4 month old Bassett puppy in. He was a very nice looking animal (though I would argue based on his size that he was closer to 6 months than 4). I took my whole family to look at him. He immediately rushed over to my 14 month old son and started licking him. Balin (my son) was laughing and hugging the puppy. They got along well immediately. My daughter also liked him (though she was a bit more preoccupied with the cats they had). In the end, she wanted to take him home too. My oldest daughter, while not really caring, said she really liked him and would love to have him in our home.

The problem came with my wife. She didn't want him. It wasn't that she didn't like him, she did. She saw a lot of our old dog in him and if there is one person that misses Hughie, it's my wife. The problem is that she only knows Hughie and was afraid that he was going to pose some of the same problems that Hughie did. She didn't want to have to commit to walking him every day. She didn't want to deal with being woke up in the middle of the night to let him outside. She didn't want to worry about the barking, the dog hair, the yard cleanup, the feeding, the watering and all the stuff that goes along with having a dog.

In the end, she told me to get him. I told her no. I'm not going to get a dog unless everyone in the family wants him and is willing to care for him. I work two jobs, so I can't commit to taking care of him all the time. What it comes down to, and I told my wife this, is that I will likely never be a pet owner again. She isn't as compelled as I am to have animal companionship and I'm not about to force an animal on her.

About an hour ago I called the shelter and told them to take the puppy over hold, that we were no longer interested in adopting him. I think that this was a mistake because I know that this was a special dog. Makes for a sad day.

My First Blog

Welcome to my first of what I hope to be many post to this blog. I'm really excited about this as I am someone who likes to write but occasionally has trouble thinking of what to write. I think that this will give me plenty of opportunities to just spit out whatever happens to be on my mind. There is no theme to this blog, there are no rules. I will simply spout my opinion and post my thoughts concerning whatever. I'm really looking forward to it and hope you enjoy reading what I've written.