. . . was, technically, yesterday. But my Astros play their first game of the season later this afternoon (weather permitting -- it was snowing in Philly this morning), so close enough ( Read more... )

I hardly see my wife on the weekdays these days, as I have mentioned before. But on the weekend, we still tend to do our own things as we pursue our daily lives. On Saturday nights, for example, she heads out to a local yarn store/knitting parlor for a weekly "stitch and bitch" with her friends. After a long week of teaching the autistic, it's a ( Read more... )

Worked a 12-hour overtime shift Saturday at the IRS. Good for the paycheck, bad for the body. No overtime offered this week, so I'm glad I got some while I could ( Read more... )

Went in early to work on Friday, picked up a couple of OT hours. Then got back up Saturday morning, braved some godawful traffic (main freeway through town was closed for construction work) and put in nearly a full day ( Read more... )

And less of pretty much everything else. At the end of my second week of floor work, I'm back to where I was at the end of the season last year on the twin metrics of speed and accuracy, so that's good ( Read more... )

Though I hear it was predictable. I've always liked Melissa Leo dating back to her days on the Homicide TV show, so good for her. And congratulations to all the winners ( Read more... )

As the economy tanked a couple years ago and we looked at our sad employment situation, we decided to focus out efforts on working in the public sector. More stability, more security, we thought ( Read more... )

A few thoughts, none of which are substantial enough to justify an entire post alone . . .

Skimming the TV listings this week, I saw the most wonderful thing -- not one, but two preseason baseball games on TV Saturday, courtesy of the MLB Network. If you're a baseball fan, you should check this channel out. Spring Training is a metaphoric rebirth ( Read more... )

Working for the federal government has a couple of advantages, one being a fair number of paid holidays. Today is President's Day, but I'm not using it to contemplate the great (and not-so-great) presidents of times past. Nor am I using the time shopping for a mattress.

I got a very funny book for Christmas, Earth: The Book, credited to "Jon ( Read more... )

Here's my first music recommendation since restarting the blog:

The Baseball Project is a group of well-pedigreed indie rock types (including R.E.M.'s Peter Buck) who happen to love -- and write great songs about -- baseball. They've done songs about the famous and the obscure, from Pete Rose, Fernando Valenzuela, Ted Williams, and Jackie ( Read more... )