Ups and Downs of the week.

 Netflix – Great service. Can’t believe I’m just catching on now.

 Red Sox – They trade Mike Lowell for a second (or third) rate catcher and $3million in savings? I don’t get it.

 Christkindlesmart – It’s on again. The live cam isn’t as user friendly, but it works.

  Illinois State Legislature – The chickenshit morons failed to pass a relatively minor tax hike, so now they aren’t paying the bills. Accordingly, state employees may be forced to take furlough days as early as January. I can handle the days off without pay, but many folks making less will really take a beating. How much sense does it take to realize that the state is about to go under and something needs to be done?

New Kitties – They all checked out fine at the vet today. Looks like we’ll be keeping them. Now we need to come up with names.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Marco Scutaro – Welcome to the Red Sox, Marco.

  Patriots – What an embarrassment against New Orleans.

 Positano – Another webcam with awesome images.

New Laptop – Dell Latitude Z600. It’s light as a magazine but has a 16″ screen. So far, pretty impressive. I’m liking Windows 7, too.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Pretty sure bet they’ll make the post-season. Close call with Lester getting drilled tonight, but it looks like he’ll be ok. Just hope no one else gets hurt between now and Game 1 of the first series.

  Sudden death – Saw my neighbor’s (Neighbor-A) dog get run over today. He was an old, old English Setter who was deaf as a post and had a bad habit of sleeping behind cars. I nearly ran him over with the Z4 once. I had to jack up the car to get him out from under it. My neighbor across the street (Neighbor-B) wasn’t so lucky tonight. He was very distraught about it. The dog’s owner was sad, but knew it would happen sooner or later. It’s a shame poor Neighbor-B has to deal with the memory of running the dog over, though. 

 Autumn – Love this time of year. Not as pretty here as in New England, but the weather is awesome and harvest will be starting soon.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Doing really well lately. Looks like they’ll make it into the post-season.

  Renault F1 – They won’t contest the charges that they intentionally crashed one car to help their other car win. Same as admitting guilt. Shame on them. F1 really needs to start eliminating cheaters from the series. 

 New Restaurant in Town – Two Flowers is awesome.

  Narcissism – It’s becoming the norm. Sadly.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Silly CNN Headlines – I’d like to think someone at CNN has a sense of humor, but I tend to believe they missed this one entirely. Still, The Onion must be jealous.

  Red Sox - Playing better some days and not so much on others. They’ll most likely stumble and stagger into the post season. All bets are off then.

  Formula One shenanigans – Did Renault really fix a race by ordering Nelson Piquet, Jr. to crash? If so, it’s a very dark day for F1. Even worse than the McLaren cheating scandal. Shame on Renault if it’s true and major shame on Piquet if this is just a case of being a disgruntled former employee.

 Giancarlo Fisichella – The Italian finally gets his wish, to drive for Ferrari. And at Monza, no less. Best of luck to him. He’s got every Tifosi in the world on his side.

Ups and Downs of the week.

     Red Sox – They kicked butt for a bit, then blew a 10-1 7th inning lead in one game, then came back from 5-1 in the 9th to win the next game, and then blew a chance to win tonight at home. Typical Red Sox roller coaster. I’d sure would enjoy another 10+ game winning streak about now.

  Michael Jackson Coverage – Enough already. You can’t escape the hype over every snippet of tape the newsies dig up. CNN (Celebrity News Network) is one of the worst.

 Dad - Home since Thursday and doing better.

  The Sanford Saga – Infidelity is nothing new. Why do we treat every occurrence like it’s the first time it ever happened? If Sanford abused his position as governor or misused public funds, then can the bastard and move on. Personally, I couldn’t care less what his wife thinks about the whole thing. It’s not my business.

  Cool Weather – This week has been a nice break from the heat and humidity of recent weeks. I can deal with mid-to-high 70s and low 80s.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Ann Arbor, MI – Great little town. Easy to walk around, lots of restaurants, and, as I found out, an outstanding and friendly BMW dealership. (Thanks, Shane.)

  Air France flight 447 – What a shame. Hope they find out what went wrong.

 Dad – Still in rehab, but doing fine.

   Red Sox - They desperately need a shortstop. And, sad to say, a DH.

 Verizon 3G data network – Sarah was able to surf and do email almost all the way from home to Ann Arbor. The Asus EEE-PC is perfect for this sort of thing.

  Dumb speed limits – This is the highway from Detroit to London, Ontario. Wide open, brand new, three lane highway with a 100 KPH (63 MPH) speed limit. Talk about a boring ride.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Long weekend – I need it. Starting Thursday we’ll be gone for most of the next three weeks. Thursday we’re off to NYC to BookExpo. We come back on Monday and leave again on Thursday for London, Ontario for Sarah’s cousin’s wedding. We’re back on that Sunday and gone again on Wednesday to Chicago for the HNS conference, finally coming home the following Monday. Lots of travel and not much rest.

   Dad – Back in the hospital again. Nothing too serious; just the same buildup of fluids that makes it hard for him to breathe. Thing is, this is exactly what convinced the docs he needed heart valve replacement way back in October. Now after 7 months of recovery from that, he’s having the same symptoms. Modern medicine is still a lot of guesswork. Dad should be home again on tomorrow, though.

 Red Sox - Despite tonight’s loss to the Mets (they got outpitched and Lugo was playing, so there you go), they still swept the Jays this week and are a half game out of first. Jays and Yankmees both lost tonight as well, so no ground lost.

 Weather – What a great week for weather. Got a bit of a sunburn from all the top-down driving, though.

  Illinois government – What a joke. The whole bunch of them need to be fired. Start over fresh. Maybe if the job paid better and was full-time we’d get some intelligent people to run for office.

 Bob Marley - What a shame he died so young. Incredible music.

 Grand Prix of Monaco – The premier race of this weekend. True racing talent on display here. High speed racing between Armco barriers through the streets of Monte Carlo. Much better than a couple hundred identical laps around an oval track like that other race this weekend.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Dad – Home at last. He came home Tuesday and has been doing well. My sister is staying with my folks now to help out for a bit. Welcome home, Dad.

  Celtics/Bruins/Red Sox - All three teams lost last night. Bruins are done for the season. Celts now face a Game 7. Sox again fail to capitalize on a Toronto loss. Big Papi went 0-7 and left 12 men stranded. Something needs to be done to move him out of the number 3 slot.

   Weather – Some nice days this week but lots of rain as well. More nastiness in store for us tonight, but starting tomorrow we should be entering a dry spell. Good news for the farmers.

 Graduation weekend - It’ll be nice going to work next week with the students all gone.

  Emergency Alert System – While the system itself can be useful, this cable company goes way overboard with it. I’ve been watching TV for about 90 minutes now and these messages have interrupted 9 times (so far). Sooner or later you just stop watching them.

 The Wall – Never know what you’re going to see. Our newest resident bird, The Redhead, or Mama Coonie cooling herself on the concrete.

Ups and Downs of the week.

   Sarah’s New Book – This represents over a year of hard work. Between this new volume and her original book, the vast majority of historical novels are now indexed, classified, and described. I know I’m bragging, but she deserves it.

  Prehistoric Road Maintenance - This week it seemed every road I drove on had holes and cracks patched with oil and loose pea stone gravel. I really need to get some pictures of the idiotic way the state of Illinois patches roads. They spray a little bit of thick oil on the crack or hole and then blow in 1/4″ pea stone. They always use way too much pea stone and the first time someone runs over it, it gets scattered everywhere. Then it gets tossed in the air to chip paint and crack windshields. The really stupid part is that it doesn’t last a week. The crews are back at it on the same roads week after week. If I knew whose idea it was to do it this way, I’d sit outside his/her house with a bushelful of these stones and a slingshot and plink away at whatever car they drive. I just hope we’re not throwing away our stimulus money on this nonsense.

  My 2006 Z4 3.0si – This car is a beast. It’s fast and corners like it’s glued to the road. I’ve been having a blast in it for a week now. Best of all, it gets great gas mileage on top of being fun to drive.