Back in the swing of things.

Well I am glad I decided to play in that doubleheader last night. It was a little rough on my body, but I think I finally got my groove back. Between the two games I went 8-9 hitting out of the 3 and 4 holes respectively. I didn't make an out until the last AB of the last game, and that might even have been a little fatigue sneaking in. I also played 10 innings in the outfield and really got comfortable out there for the first time in years. I made a whole bunch of plays ranging from a shoe string catch coming in on a ball, to a play over the shoulder on a ball that was crushed, to good running catches into LCF. I also played a few innings at SS and didn't have any problems there either.

As far as I can tell the St Johns team plays again next Thursday or two days before the tourney. I'll probably play, but ask to play something low impact, to save myself for the tourney.

On a sidenote the wife comes back from St Mary's today. It'll be nice to see her again as it has been since Sunday.

10-7-1 with a lightning bolt

I am in the middle of what should have been 4 games in 4 days, two for Liberty, two for St Johns. Monday we beat Real Life 14-6 out at the worst prepared field in exsistance. I managed to play 2B for most of the game, except for the last inning when I played LF. I had a crappy day at the plate until my last AB when I stung one right at the SS. I went 2-4.

Tuesday we were trying to play through the rain, when the air flashed this pinkish-yellow hue and lightning hit a couple of hundred feet behind us in the woods that surround the field. Needless to say the idea of finishing the game was done for. Thankfully it was Valley Baptist and they were just going to take 1000 walks anyways. We will see if we make it up or not.

Today I get to play a doubleheader with St Johns in Michigan City. That ought to be a good prep for our tourney next Saturday.

WE HAVE LIFT-OFF!!!

It was a sight for sore eyes to see the Space Shuttle program take to the reaches of space again today. It has been almost 2 1/2 years since the Columbia exploded during reentry into the earth's orbit after its mission had been completed. Today's lauch seemingly went off without a hitch. Launch day is still an incredible rush to me after all of these years. God speed to all of the astronauts and the people running the show at the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers.

Tsunami earthquake caught on tape

Evidently someone managed to capture the audio sound of the earthquake that led to the Christmas Eve Tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in southeast Asia. The mics were placed underwater orginally to be able to hear if anyone tried the underwater testing of nuclear devices. The effect is incredible.

Hear a 9.3 earthquake underwater

My latest publishing

This one was on eminent domain. Thankfully the LaPorte County Council passed a resolution against eminent domain, the same day that my letter was published in the News Dispatch

The Supreme Court recently made, what I believe to be the biggest mistake of my lifetime, Reducing the standards of eminent domain to the level of a joke. Right now a community can seize a person's property simply under the guise that it "benefits the community." The standard for that seems to be as low as if it increases the tax roll base and/or employs more people than the previous utilization of the property. Essentially, a business could decide that they want to turn your house into a gas station, if the town's administration agree, they could seize your property and allow the company to build the gas station. The property’s owner would have zero recourse, as long as they receive fair market value for their property. Basically, all property becomes the local community’s property, because there is no way to stop the local municipality from taking it from residents for the greater good. Think about that for a second, community property being used for the greater good of all. When I was in elementary school as a young tyke, that was taught to me as Communism and as evil. What has changed in the last 20 years?

This is scary stuff folks. What is even scarier is that our own town

is attempting to do this exact thing to an entire area without a plan that serves “the greater good.” They want to tear down seemingly profitable businesses with no care for their status as private property. If Blocksom and the other businesses want to leave, that is their right, but it is also within their rights to be a profitable company, on their own private property. As long as there is no great public need for their land (I am talking about an interstate of something that is essential to a town), they should be allowed to operate like the framers of the constitution intended they should.

My other problem with this is the long term effects it could have on Michigan City. My wife and I were both born and raised here and are about to have our first child. We are currently in the process of looking for a house to buy here, but a part of me wonders if we should be doing so. At anytime McDonalds could decide that our place would

make a nice drive through, and Michigan City could take away our house. Is the town in which we want to lay down roots? Will making the largest purchase of our lives be safe and secure?

My challenge today is to Mayor Oberlie and the city council to step to the forefront of this historical issue and pass an ordinance to make it impossible to use eminent domain except in extraordinary situations. Please, protect our rights to private property Mr. Mayor.

Bachelor for a Week

Well the wife is away for a week at Saint Mary's to take a class on teaching AP Biology for next year. They actually go through all of the labs that the teachers will be leading, so that they know how to do and teach them for their own classes. It will be a week of 12 hour days, but in the long run it works out for the better for us. Purdue Cal actually said they would accept that as her last class towards her finishing the program for her teachers certificate, so now she won't have to take anymore classes after this one. Not only is it nice because she won't have to worry about driving to Hammond in the middle of winter, but we also don't have to worry about figuring out how to pay for another class, as the school system picked up the tab for it.

One of those days...

Last night was a rip your heart out kind of a game for the White Sox. They had a good offensive night off of Matt Clement, making him throw a ton of pitches and scoring 4 runs by hitting 3 homer. They also scoring the game tying run with two outs in the 8th inning with a huge Joe Crede double to the gap to knot the game at 5. Then the baseball gods evened things out. Manny Ramirez hit a foul pop up towards the stands wide of 3rd base, Crede got over in plenty of time and managed to take the ball right off the palm of his glove while trying to backhand the ball for his first error in 49 games. So of course Manny hit the very next pitch from Vizcaino 415 feet into the left field stands, for the game winning Red Sox run. It must have been Christmas in July at the Cell as the White Sox gave up 3 errors which led to 3 runs for the Sox of Red.

The teams still have 3 games left, and it sounds like the Sox will be Hurtless as the rumor is that Frank is going back onto the DL and hot hitting Ross Gload will be called up.

9-7

Well yesterday we didn't have our full contingent of players, and we got flat out beat. We made a nice rally scoring 6 runs in the bottom of the 7th to get within 3, but we couldn't quite get over the hump and lost 20-17.

I had an awful game going 2-5, and playing like absolute crap in the field. Our last two games are Monday and Tuesday, and then the tourney is August 6th.

DE-TROIT SUCKS, DE-TROIT SUCKS

I ended up scoring free tickets to the Tuesday night Sox game. With the way they played, they were sure lucky I got them for free. I knew we were in trouble when Joe Crede made what should have been scored as an error with two outs to put two on base. Sure enough the next guy up hooked the foul pole for a 3 run homer, and the Tigers never looked back as Jeremy Bonderman just put it on cruise control. It was a rough night at the park, but like the old saying goes, a bad day at the ballpark beats a good day anywhere else.

Another nice note about the best team in baseball, their average attendance is flying towards averaging 30,000 a night. They sold out two games against the Tigers, and could concievably sell out all four games against the Red Sox. They already have 10 sell outs on the season. All of this will be nice when Mr. Reinsdorf goes to make the 2006 budget out for the White Sox. Hopefully the play on the field can continue to match the number of people in the stands.

9-6

We ended up losing another game last night, and it wasn't even close. The team we played against actually just moved up from the B division to fill in for a team that didn't have enough people to play their season out. I didn't realize who the team was until their pitcher got there. This guy is the whiniest crybaby I have seen in the 4 years that I have been playing in this league. Even when they were up by 15 runs in the 7th inning this bitch was crying about called balls and strikes. It makes it not any fun at that point, and it was all I could do not to cram a softball down his throat to shut him up. Our next game is Thursday.

The Golden Ticket

We went and saw the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring one Johnny Depp, and were not disappointed at the $25 we spent (admission plus snacks)

This might be the rare case where the remake is better than the original. This is definately not your rated "G" Gene Wilder version, and I loved it. Depp plays a really strange Willie Wonka who is still stuck in the 70's, or back when he sealed off the factory from the prying eyes of people trying to steal his secrets. I couldn't help but think they used Michael Jackson with the pasty white face and crappy hairdo when the costumed Depp for the role, but it really went to establishing the strangeness needed to pull off this part. There were a lot of fun scenes and cute jokes that went into the movie. All in all a definate must see, even if you didn't like the original. If you like a dark kids movie, this is it.

Home again, home again

Things are still reving in nuetral for us on the home front. We looked at a couple of places on Tuesday. One was a really nice place, one was a dump. The one we liked is way overpriced, but it has been on the market a long time so our realtor seems to think that we might be able to get it for a good amount cheaper than what it is listed for. We also looked at a For Sale By Owner out by her parents on Sunday, and while the place was really nice, it was tiny. It was really maticulously taken care of and fixed up, but it had only one bedroom officially, and two potentially, if you turned an entrance into a door. So for us the search goes on...

9-5

We lost another craptacular game to a team who refused to swing the bats all night. I don't know why you would bother showing up for a softball game if you have no interest in actually playing the game, but I guess that is just me. Final was 20-19

I played in LCF last night, being away from SS for the first time. We have a couple of new guys that we are trying to get into games, and one of them plays SS pretty well so I moved into the OF to try to get some practice out there just in case I am ever needed out there. I only really made one play, and even then I handed off to someone else to make the long throw in. It was pretty humorous actually, as it looked like a fleaficker.

Next game is Monday. Hopefully we play a team who actually wants to swing the bats, instead of taking like 20 walks.

9-4

Well Monday was an absolutely miserable game all around. We only had 8 guys bother to show up, so we had to have someone's wife play catcher for us. The team we played had won a single game all year, yet they beat us 13-10 because they had 16 people show up.

I had a crappy day at the plate too going 0-4 with a walk. I hit everything hard, but it was all right at someone. Next game is Thursday in a make up game from a rainout.

My media update

I guess you could call me Mr Multimedia now, but somehow I managed to get a letter printed in the newspaper, and a letter read on TV during the same day.

This was my letter to rapid response in the Michigan City News Dispatch

It is ironic that a story about the possible usage of Eminent Domain would be the headline on the 4th of July weekend. Our forefathers are probably rolling in their graves after this Supreme Court ruling, knowing that they intended individual property rights to supercede local and state property rights, except in extreme circumstances.

And then that same night my letter to Hawk and DJ got read during the White Sox game congratulating both Scott Podsednik for making the All-Star team, and Soxtalk.com for all of the votes that they put in to get him on as the 32nd man. Being the collector that I am I have copies of that on both MP3 and videotape for posterities sake.

One pitch tourney

Well I should have known when I got the park and was stung by a hornet within 5 minutes that is wasn't going to be my day. The line ups ended up being a mess, the pitchers didn't warm up enough, and the coach ended up yelling at two of his players during the game. Needless to say we lost the first game and were done just like that. I had a decent day at the plate going 2-3, dispite the pitch I saw in my first AB being over my head, and 3 feet outside. I made all of the plays in the field, but it was all for naught as we got down 6-0 before we decide to wake up and score some runs in the 7th inning. The final was 6-4.

As for the LBC team, we were supposed to play former powerhouse South Haven on Friday, but they asked if they could make it a double-header on Monday, so we just had a practice instead, with two games being played tonight.

Elston is out

The owner decided that she wanted to take the bid that her ex-boyfriend arranged for her dispite all of the problems and potential hang ups that come along with it. So that means it is back to square one for us, and we are going to look at more places on Tuesday. This process has been a stinking mess, and has me half wanting to go and just rent an apartment. This has just sucked so far, and I am pretty well sick of all of the stupid crap that has gone into looking for a house. The scary thing is that this supposed to be the "easy" part.

Our House... update

Well not much of an update other than to say, everything that could go wrong did... Nutcase ex-boy friends, nervous breakdowns, attempted bidding wars, ethics violations, tears, stress, and probably the kitchen sink happened last week. We never got a response to our final bid, but apparently the girl who owns the house we bid on had a nervous breakdown after breaking up with her pathalogical liar boyfriend, and so she never even knew our bid exsisted. So now she wants to look at our bid, which now doesn't exsist because it expired Friday at 6pm. I though this was supposed to be the fun part... I hate to see what the closing and loan processes are like.

War of the Worlds

The original Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" was one of my first "favorite" movies as a kid. My mom turned me on the movie as it was one of her favorites from when she was growing up. It was made the year she was born, and she first saw it at about age 7 on network TV. I also fell in the love with the movie instantly, and was very excited yet nervous when I saw that not only was it joining the parade of remakes, but it was going to star the "Tool of Scientology" ("Tool" for short) Tom Cruise. The one thing I was really excited about going into it was that Steven Speilberg was directing it. As a forewarning, do not read past this point if you have not seen the movie yet and wish to be surprised.

***SPOILERS***

Well we went and saw it Friday and I totally loved it. They did an awesome job with it. Many parts actually skipped the orginal movie and instead went back to the book which was written in 1898. They actually ditched the floating alien crafts and went to these tripods that had actually been buried into the earth waiting for their pilots to take them over. In the beginning of the movie there were these strange lightning strikes, which were actually the aliens being transported down into their crafts. After that they fun begins.

The real star of the movie was young Dakota Fanning who starred as "Tool"'s kid, and totally stole the movie from him. She did an incredible job selling the mood of fear that would go into an end of the world scenario, without the whining crying that most kids roles have at that point.

A couple of things that Speilberg did well was to reeact the scene where the people attack the truck and empty everyone out of it separating the dad and his kid, vs the guy and his new girlfriend in the orginal movie.

Another solid scene was were the little moble spy eye came into the basement to peak around and make sure everyone was dead. The new version was a lot tougher and thicker, but the scene was just as chilling as the original movie.

One neat thing I picked up when I went back and watched the original was that even though the female love interest of the original movie was ditched in favor of kids, Speilberg remembered her by naming the street that Cruise and his family lived on as Van Buren, a nod to Shiela Van Buren, who starred in the original.

One interesting change was that they ditched the whole scene in the church at the end of the movie where everyone is praying for a miracle from God, and then all of the sudden the aliens start to drop. I am not sure if this was in difference to "Tool"'s religious beliefs or a change made by the director, but it made the ending a little more sudden as the aliens just started to drop out of no where.

The end was great as they kept the alien hand falling out of the craft, dead.

All in all, an incredible remake, definately worth seeing. Get off your butts and see it at the theater.

Royal Rumble Supreme Court Style

The big news out of Washington DC today is that Reagan Supreme Court appointee and Justice, Sandra Day-O'Conner is stepping down from the nations highest court aftet this session. So this means President Bush will get to appoint his first nominee to the Supreme Court. Too bad they don't sell tickets to the Congressional hearings, because those will be more entertaining then any fight Mike Tyson has had in the last 10 years or so. Congress is already a stagnent cesspool of sabatouge and hate, and this is only going to make the nations top legislature grind to a halt. To quote Team America "America FUCK YEAH!"