Ups and Downs of the Week

Yo, Adrian! – Adrian Beltre signed a 6-year, $96 million deal with the Texas Rangers this week. While I think the Rangers are auf dem Holzweg, I don’t begrudge Adrian his windfall. He should kiss his agent, though. In other good baseball news, Sox-killer Matt Garza has signed with the Cubbies, which means the Sox won’t be seeing much of him this coming year.

Time – Another year gone by. Tomorrow I hit 52. Time is sliding by faster and faster every year. Scary sometimes. On the other hand, I still feel young mentally, like I really haven’t hit my stride yet. Sometimes the physical aches and pains remind me that the freight train of antiquity is pulling into the station, but my general outlook is that I have a long way to go. My psyche is feeling like my body is committing treason. Strange.

iPhone/Verizon – Supposedly the iPhone is coming to Verizon in February. *If* it’s not too pricey and *if* the data plan is reasonable, it may be time to upgrade my trusty old RAZR. I really like my iPod touch, and having the phone and iPod combined in the iPhone would be a nice move. But I’m leery of Verizon’s penchant for gouging customers for their data plans with high demand equipment.

Chuck and Lauren – My nephew got married to a (by all accounts) very special girl. ‘Bout time! I look forward to meeting her. Welcome to the family, Lauren.