What happened to September?

So I just completely skipped September. It seems like the days all blend together now and I sometimes have a problem remembering which day of the week it is.

Here is a short list of what has been going on over the past 4 weeks or so...

1. Read a lot of books - the highlights were the Destroyermen series and "One Second After".


2. All three of my fantasy baseball teams made their respective playoffs - a first for me. Of course, two of them lost already and the third team plays tonight.


3. I collected more info on the various military exploits of family members but the flow has subsided. Time to send another round of emails!
   
4. Watched the Giants flame out in their playoff quest.


5. Received a summons for jury duty and submitted yet another letter from my doctor to be excused.

Also, we had to have our cat Elvis put to sleep. He was 15 years old when he stopped eating one day last month and within a week he was gone.

I love the smell of Naugahyde in the morning

I remember being around eight years old and my dad would take me with him when he went shopping for all kinds of cool things he would use around the house and in his work on cars in the garage. We went to flea markets and Army surplus stores back when they really had a lot of used army stuff for sale. I recall walking into a store that had a real air force pilot's used helmet with oxygen mask for sale - boy, did I want that helmet! I had no practical use for a helmet you understand, but when you are an eight year old boy, well, you don't think about that very much. I'm not sure what I really expected to see in the surplus stores but I always was excited to go to one anywhere. I think at that age I half expected one day to walk into one of these places and see a tank for sale. I knew my dad would never pass up the opportunity to buy an army surplus tank - I was sure of that.

One summer back in Oklahoma we found a well stocked surplus store right next to Fort Sill, which is the army base that trains soldiers in the art of artillery. I did manage to talk my dad into buying me a dummy 20mm cannon round. This was complete, not just a shell casing. It was bright silver and while it wasn't live and couldn't explode it was intact as far as I could see. That cannon round became every bomb I needed for my GI JOE to disarm (long before Jack Bauer required 24 hours) or ride like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.

Dad bought a lot of Naugahyde for upholstery work he did on cars both as a way to make some extra money on the side. I still can smell new rolls of Naugahyde and instantly think of flea markets and driving our car on the way home on a back road from Napa sitting on my dad's lap while steering the car - imagine trying that today! Funny how smells can trigger such strong memories.

Staples removed

On Friday I had 17 staples removed from the incision on my chest. It took the nurse less than a minute to remove them using the handy dandy official staple remover. I believe that with my stutter it actually takes me longer to say 'staples' than it did to have them removed.

I finished a second video using clips from the latest Zombie map in the Call of Duty 5 World at War video game and posted it here on YouTube. This new video is a commercial for a new theme park.

My parents must be proud of me now!

So, how many staples do you have in your chest?

I currently have 18 in mine. That's because I just had my first battery replacement surgery for my DBS pulse generator. It has been almost 3 years since the whole shebang was installed and the battery needed to be changed - it was in danger of running out of power. So, I went in on Friday morning at 6AM, was wheeled into the OR around 9AM, and was in the recovery room at 10:30AM. Home by noon. Big difference from the original surgery wouldn't you say?

All in all it was a very well orchestrated procedure and I don't remember much of anything after entering the OR. I recall talking to the doctor about Michael Jackson and Thriller and also remember talking to someone who was restarting the device after it had been sewn up in place. Don't ask me what we talked about though ... I have no idea.

A few pain pills here and there have made the recovery pretty easy so far. Took the bandage off today and a quick shower helped to make me feel somewhat normal again.

Baseball memories

Last night Jonathan Sanchez pitched a no-hitter, the least likely member of the Giants' pitching staff to do so. This was the first no-hitter by a Giant's pitcher since John Montefusco in 1976, the first at home since Ed Halicki in 1975 and the first by a Giant's left-hander since Carl Hubbell in 1929! The 33 years since the last Giants no-hitter was the longest streak going, not counting the New York Mets and (sorry, Tom) the San Diego Padres, neither which has pitched a no-hitter yet. The Padres were no-hit by Tim Lincecum for 6 + innings the night before. Wow, how would you like to be a Padres fan today?

I remember a game Tom and I attended at Candlestick Park back in the 1980s when Scott Garrelts of the Giants threw 8 2/3 no-hit innings only to give up a hit to Paul O'Neill of the Reds in the ninth inning. We were sitting in the upper deck and were out of our seats the minute the ball hit the ground trying to beat the crowd out to the parking lot. Getting out of the 'Stick in those days was very tough to do if you insisted on waiting until the end of the game.

Other interesting baseball moments I recall in person include:

Mark McGwire taking batting practice at Candlestick around the time he was making his run at 70 homers - out of 25 pitches he saw during his session he hit 15 or 16 over the fence in left ...
Will Clark driving a double down the line in right, driving in his 5th, 6th and 7th runs of the game in the bottom of the ninth to beat (ugh, sorry again, TW) the Padres ... the 13 runs scored in one inning in San Diego by SF ... catching a batting practice homer in the left field stands in San Diego ... watching a fan sitting a couple of rows in front of us in Cincinnati completely misjudge a foul ball and see the ball hit him flush in the eye socket ... the tough-looking tattooed biker dude in San Diego, who after spending almost three full innings heckling Willie McGee, began to sob softly (real tears!) after someone sitting around him complained to an usher who told him to knock it off.

One thing I haven't yet experienced at a baseball game is catch a foul ball. I have been to almost 100 games and never even had a foul come close enough to touch. The closest I have come was a game at AT&T a few years back when I was sitting in a lower box behind the first base dugout about half way up the section. A foul ball came back over my head towards the upper deck where it appeared to get ready to bounce off of the scoreboard. I had read the angle and thought this was going to be it - the one! Except the ball stuck in one of the light sockets that make up the old-style scoreboards! The socket was barely big enough to fit a ball into - and yet there it was ... it never came out.

A little history, part 2

Early in the 1980's (pre-internet days) there were sites that existed online known as Bulletin Board System or BBS's. They were run on personal computers that were connected to phone numbers that were usually devoted to accessing the BBS only. You had to dial up to these sites using a modem and once you connected (not always a sure thing in those days since the number of concurrent users wasn't very high) you could navigate a text menu to find software to download or forums to post messages to other users - a sort of public email system at that time.

I would have to run software on my home computer then dial a phone number using a phone, once the dial tone changed I would have to place the phone receiver into a pair of rubber cups that were on top of the actual modem. Then the modems became more useful and faster as the years went on, losing the rubber cups and connecting directly to your home computer and eventually being integrated inside the computer on a card.

AOL came along in the early to mid-90's and we got on board here at our home around 1994-95. There was a time when AOL was our only access to the Internet and you had to use the AOL interface at all times - even when accessing early web pages.

Now most of us have broadband connections to the Internet that allow us to email, surf, blog, share videos and photos, access our medical info, play games, check our bank accounts, pay bills, read the news, buy practically anything for sale and even watch TV shows - all at speeds unheard of only a decade ago.

Who knows what is coming next? I expect more wireless connections available freely to anyone anywhere in the next few years, easier setups to allow Ma and Pa to hook up anything they need to use online regardless of their level of computer skill and all of your key personal information eventually stored on or inside of your body.

I know there are people that aren't sure that last item is a good thing but think about how much key information you have to carry around either in a wallet, purse or even your memory? How nice would it be to have all of your account numbers, medical info/history, usernames/passwords, phone numbers, appointments and dates available in a chip that is attached to you somehow that isn't easily lost or stolen?

A little history

As I watched Modern Marvels on the History Channel this morning I was reminded of some of the incredible advances in technology that I take for granted every day that have just appeared in the past couple of decades.

For instance, in the very early 80's I recall going down to Macy's at Valley Fair with Ralph to purchase Atari 800 home computers for each of us. I had to type in lines of BASIC code to run programs and connect a tape drive to it (just exactly like an audio tape recorder) in order to save these programs to use again. The 5.25 inch floppy disc drive cost almost as much as the computer so that had to come much later. Then came the second floppy, the thermal printer, more memory, upgrade to the Atari 800XL, the Atari ST, 10MB external hard drive, a Packard Bell 286 PC, followed by 386, 486, Pentium I, Pentium II, Pentium III desktops, Dell laptops, HP laptops... all the way up to the system I sit at today which has essentially four processors running 3GB of RAM along with 640GB of hard disk space (compare that to the 10MB hard drive I bought back in the mid - 80's for almost as much as my entire system cost last year).

How about any of these everyday devices? CD player, laser disc player, Palm Pilot, DVD player, VCR, CD recorder, DVD recorder, digital camera, camcorder, cell phone, desktop printer, LCD televsion, IPOD, - all of these have been created in my lifetime and I have at various times at least one of each. The first digital camera I remember using was a Kodak SLR with a hard drive back that had to be connected to a SCSI card installed in a computer - the camera and card ran around $10,000 when it first appeared and we had one at Applied. We also had one of the first CD recorders on the market. I still have the very first CD I created back more than 18 years ago from that system. It has held up much better than any tape I have!

The main tasks that I always wanted to be able to do at home on any system I had was to create and edit video. This always seemed to be one generation of equipment away from what I could afford - until the turn of the century. Around the year 2000 I finally obtained the proper combination of software tools and hardware that allowed for full screen video input and output. This included the camcorder I still use today. I was one of the first students in my video class at West Valley to be able to edit my assignments on a computer. Now desktop video is commonplace - Windows these days even comes with software installed to make and output video.

Next time: getting online in the early days, dial tones, acoustic cups and AOL ...

Mini - movie review of UP

Lauri, Mallory and I went to the movies on Sunday to see the newest Pixar film, "Up". It was a good story and as usual a visual treat. It was interesting to see the design choices that they made - especially with the people. In the beginning of the computer graphic animation era there were many problems with trying to depict people on screen using CGI - the "uncanny valley" principal appears. As with most new tools it took the artists using them a while to figure out the best ways to get around this problem. More often in the early days animators simply avoided people as much as possible using animals or machinery to tell stories. "Up" went with the exaggerated design angle which worked well, for me anyway.

As usual there was a new short from Pixar before the feature and it was a hoot! Those folk know how to create a story - no matter how long or short it is. Made a tear come to my eye ...

Elvis is meowing to me right now - I think it is his daily round of "Marco Polo". Yep, there he is now. After noon - ish every day he wanders through the house looking for me and after he finds me he goes back to bed. What a life.

I almost forgot to post one of my favorite new web sites to browse: Awkward Family Photos. This is a site devoted to just what the title says it is - awkward family photos. Take a peek and see!

Some updates

Chelsea and Raquel are in Uganda right now and we were discussing them last night at our bible study - specifically how amazing it is that they can be thousands of miles away and we can follow their progress through their blogs. If you haven't peeked at Chelsea's blog yet I encourage you to do so in the column on the right.

Made a library run on Tuesday... picked up more books about baseball including Hank Greenwald's and Jose Canseco's bios.

I have an appointment in July to have the battery changed in my brain stimulator and apparently it is more involved than I was led to believe. I will be completely asleep when they do the surgery (that is actually better in my opinion) but I will still be able to go home straight from the recovery room when I awake - no overnight stay planned as of now.

The final version of the music video we made at the Witticks last month can be viewed at this link.

Weekend of fun

We went up to visit my sister and her family over the Memorial Day weekend and while we were there we shot some footage for a music video I had planned on making. It was interesting to see what happens to different people when a camera is suddenly thrust into their faces - you never really know what you will get.

I had put some thought and pre-work into planning for the shoot but still ended up short of footage. I seem to remember that real directors have to shoot more than 10 times the amount of footage than they will actually use.

Overall I had fun and hope that everyone I roped into being behind or in front of the camera did too. It made me laugh to hear my niece telling her grandmother all about what we had done.

Welcome to the show that never ends

I went to see my neurologist yesterday for a quarterly check and my battery needs to be changed at the end of June. The battery in the pulse generator inside my chest - which isn't too bad (so says the staff in Neurology, none of whom I am pretty sure have never experienced it yet themselves) but still will require a visit to Redwood City for an out-patient 'procedure' (no laughing, Ralph). Also means a scalpel of some size cutting into my chestal area to pull out the device and replacing the battery and then staples to close the wound... er, uh - incision.

So I've got that to look forward to.

Tomorrow will be the end of two weeks out on MLOA for me and so far I have found enough to do to not be completely bored. I have read a few books, watched a few movies I had never seen before, and managed to create a couple of videos. Even made it outside to the library a couple of times. That's outside of the house ...

Caught the new Brian Wilson show on Comcast called 'Life of Brian' about the daily life of the Giants' closer and almost 10 minutes of the half-hour episode was devoted to watching him play Rock Band on his Xbox. Sounds pretty much like my life ...

Date night - well, sorta

Lauri and I had a special 'date night' last night - we spent it at Kaiser Hospital. I mentioned something about not getting out all day and the next thing you know we are down in the emergency room waiting around for test results to be reviewed. I will let Lauri explain in more detail what happened but I will say that all of her results came back negative (that's a good thing, George) and Lauri is fine.

It doesn't seem to matter how many time saving gizmos and procedures and new technology that they get down at the average emergency room - it always takes 4 hours once you are there. The doctor who sent Lauri even gave her a secret "code word" to get into the ER faster (TIA) but all that seemed to do was get her into a bed to begin waiting sooner. I finished reading a book, exhausted the battery on my IPod Touch, and had to break into my emergency medication stash I keep in my car just for these types of occasions to get through the evening! We didn't notice the television in the room until after midnight - missed the Simpsons - because the tv looked like just another medical device!

There are a lot of sick people in a hospital on a Friday night. The best one last night was some guy who was riding a motorcycle off-road somewhere when he rounded a blind corner only to run into a low hanging branch. Ran into it with his nose. His nose lost that battle. The nose was still on his face, it just wasn't in the same place where it was before. There were a lot of hand cleaner bottles around and a lot of posters about swine flu on the walls.

War of the Worlds - the New Millenium

Here I am already into the second day of my MLOA and some of you out there thought I wouldn't last this long without getting bored! Actually it seems an awful lot like retirement without the 'honey-do' list. I find that I still get very tired at certain times of the day but now I don't have to find an open conference room to try and take a nap, instead I just go to my bedroom - that is one big difference. 

I finished reading the "War of the Worlds New Millenium" that I checked out of the library on Saturday and it has been quite a long time since I read anything that fast. It was interesting to me simply because it was an updated version of my favorite story set in this decade so the author had to make it more believable in the age of the Internet and CNN. The past week's swine flu media blitz made it very timely to think about how in the age of 24/7 news channels competing for ratings would make the story of an invasion from outer space an overwhelming event. The new version had problems in the storyline but overall I think I would have rather seen Spielberg film it instead of the version he made a few years ago. 

New video montage

Here it is ... all new FLYBOYS ON FILM 2009! This is the same song with all new clips from the world of aviation as seen in movies. No movies were duplicated from the original Flyboys on Film (click here to view the first version).

If for some reason it doesn't appear embedded below this paragraph click here to go view on YouTube.



FYI - This version includes clips from over 2 dozen movies. That is double the number used in the first version - in the same amount of screen time. The main problem with creating these video montages is that the song gets into your brain after the 25th viewing and WON"T LEAVE!
'...it's my turn to fly...'

All kinds of good things going on

Well, here we are after a month or so of semi-regular blogging and reading others' blogs and I am quite amazed actually at how much is being posted by all of you out there.  I even enjoy reading the comments to Grandpa Ralph's Corner by Katie and Marlie! 

Lauri has just sent me a new version of the short story we are co-writing and she has filled in the blanks I left for her beautifully! Well, beautiful may not be the correct word to use in the case of a story about zombies, but I think most of you will understand what I am trying to say. It has turned into a "real" story - not an outline of random facts that I started with. Not sure exactly what we will do with the final version at this point. Most likely post a link to it on this blog in the future. 

The updated "Flyboys on Film part 2" continues to slog along and I have about 60-70% of the clips inserted - enough to put a test on DVD last night. Fun to watch the first version on a TV to compare it to what I had in mind and only seen on the monitor thus far.  The first viewing for me always points out the over use of clips from a single movie source and this one is no different. "Always" is the main culprit in this case so I have to trim a couple of clips out before continuing. 

Going up to visit the Witticks in a few weeks and plan on making at least two new videos in two days while up there. Have the ideas in my head but need to finish transferring to storyboards by end of May. Should be some fun....

stuff from the weekend

I need to get back to the library for some new books but since my car has been in the body shop for a week now I haven't had the chance.  Went over to the girls' new apartment yesterday and setup their wireless network for them - finally got both of their computers hooked up and accessing the Intertubes from their wireless connection! Then I collapsed from exhaustion ... actually because I forgot to take my meds on time more than anything else ... but it worked out ok since their cable was up and running and I could watch the Giants.

I began working on an updated version of my old Flyboys on Film video this weekend using all new footage from movies that I didn't use in the first one. Once I started trying to edit the new stuff I realized how much work I had put into the first version. There was more of an attempted story line the first time through that I had completely forgotten about until I got into the editor.

Taking care of a request

My Scoresheet fantasy baseball team this year has a pretty good pitching staff including the bullpen for the first time I think in all of the years I have been playing fantasy ball. I may have just enough hitting to win a few more games this year than last. This is my rotation:

Tim Lincecum
John Danks
Derek Lowe
Jeremy Guthrie
Barry Zito

and my bullpen includes:
Mariano Rivera
Brian Wilson
Jose Valverde
Matt Lindstrom
(all of them are their team's closers)

My batting order is:
RF - Ichiro
2B - Mark Ellis
LF - Raul Ibanez
1B - Justin Morneau
DH - Brad Hawpe
3B - Pablo Sandoval
SS - Khalil Greene
CF - Aaron Rowand
C - Nick Hundley

There are 20 teams in the league which keeps the 'all star' factor out of the equation for the most part. My defense has a positive value for the first time I think since I have been playing.

Here are links to some of the pages showing stats and standings for our league - my team is the Boomstickers (team 11).

Hero Takes a Fall

I fall a lot around the house these days. It is one of the problems brought on by Parkinsons' that isn't covered under the DBS doesn't help. I don't get hurt when I fall because:

1. Years of falling during basketball and softball games have already prepared my body
2. Most of the time I am actually in a 'controlled' fall that I think is safer than trying to remain standing where I might hit something on the way down.

I am pointing this out only so that if you are around when I fall the best thing to do is just ignore it and keep on doing whatever you are doing. I promise to let everyone know if I am ever really hurt IMMEDIATELY! This is just another phase I have to deal with and there isn't much that anyone else can do about it.

One week left?

I haven't written anything about my upcoming leave of absence from work for a number of reasons - not the least being that until all of the paperwork is signed and in the insurance company's hands it won't begin next week at all (serenity now ... serenity now) and I am still waiting for the physician's form to be completed.

When everything does fall into place, which it all will eventually, I will begin a new phase of my life where I will have to find things I can do to keep myself occupied every day. This will be more difficult than it might appear at first - mainly because a lot of the things I like to do I can't do for very long anymore. That said, there are a lot of things that I can still accomplish that will just take a lot longer to do than before. Fortunately I was able to invest during the past year in a nice computer and suite of software that will enable me to continue making little videos now and then.

This coming week may be the last time I go to work at Applied - something I have been doing for the past 28 years. All of the things that I have had to do on a daily basis - good and bad - will be a memory. Mandatory training courses ... weekly reports ... bosses who don't have a clue what you do there ... project planning ... no project planning. Won't be missing any of these.

I've got a cat

This is our cat, Elvis.  He can be very annoying at times - kind of like this cat.  I think it is pretty funny that we have a cat at all.  I never thought of myself as a cat person but here we are after 14+ years with the King and he keeps going and going and going. Ask Lauri sometime about how we ended up with our first cat, Velcro.

Ah, good times ...

I've been busy

I have been catching up on everyone else's blogs recently so I haven't updated recently. Discovered "Shelfari" recently - that is the neat looking widget in the upper right column of this blog that displays books I am currently reading.

I also discovered a neat application on the Net last night called Playon which when run on my network at home will allow me to watch various internet videos on any of my televisions hooked up to an Xbox. The videos right now include anything on CBS, Hulu and most of YouTube. We watched an episode of 30 Rock and another of Father Knows Best last night. This is very similar to the Netflix - Xbox connection that we used to use when we could afford Netflix. The quality varies from site to site - You Tube is the worst and Hulu the best so far of the 7-8 channels available for free. The Playon software has a one time purchase price but I'll use the free trial for a couple of weeks to see if it is going to be worth the cost.

Giants took 2 of 3 from the D-Backs over the weekend. Great pitching from Timmy, the Big Unit and JSanchez. Still only 4-8 on the season though. Gotta get more hitting from Ishikawa and the Kung Fu Panda (Pablo Sandoval). Panda had three hits on Sunday so that's a start in the right direction.

I Love Baseball - even these guys!

What sports do I watch regularly these days? The question came up this past Sunday when my family was over celebrating my birthday. Lauri said that she considered herself a sports widow for the first 10 years or so we were married and I didn't think I had changed my viewing habits that much. However (upon further review) I know that I have changed quite a bit in three ways. I don't watch nearly any basketball these days since I don't play anymore.

I also don't watch much football since the 49ers went bad. I'm not the only one in this boat...

The third major change has been the fairly recent advent of DVR technology. The actual time spent watching games has been shortened considerably - I think I watch SJ Sharks hockey games in about 15 minutes now and some baseball games in 30 minutes.

The Giants are still my favorite sports team playing my favorite sport and I will watch every game I can. Bengie Molina just homered against LA to tie the score at 1-1. Life is good again.

PS-ugh, the Giants ended up losing that game to the hated Dodgers. Road trip was not kind to the boys in orange and black ... 0-6.

The library

Finally got back to the library on Monday and checked out some new stuff including:

The Living Dead - anthology of short stories about Zombies. Yeah, that's correct - zombies! You got a problem with that?
Highway to Hell - yet another memoir of life as a mercenary in Iraq.
Who Can Save Us Now - a collection of short stories about new superheroes.

Also found Lauri's book on the science fiction shelf - as seen here (sorry about the poor quality - I used my cellphone):

And I checked out "Seven Samurai" as well as "Hidden Fortress" on DVD. What is really cool to me is to watch Samurai after watching "Magnificent Seven" and being able to match up the characters with the actors who played them in the different versions. There are scenes that are nearly word for word in both versions as well as some theme music segments that sound very similar.

This is turning into a looong season.

Already, the Giants are not playing well. I am sitting here waiting for the tv guy to come and install a new DVR/receiver box to replace the two TIVO boxes we now have and the Giants are playing the Dodgers and Randy Johnson just gave up a 2-run single to Furcal to boost LA's lead to 4 - 1. This after San Diego swept SF to drop their record to 2-3 on the young season.

Well that stinks

Went to the library today and surprise - they were closed on Saturday for Easter. Rats! I wanted to get a bunch of books for the next week as I will be at home all week long. Also want to check out a couple of DVDs to watch - specifically "Seven Samurai" and "The Hidden Fortress" - two old Japanese movies mentioned as references by George Lucas for "Star Wars".

More book stuff

Finished up the "Making of Star Wars" book today. Amazing backstory to the beginning of the phenomenon. Didn't realize that Lucas was also responsible for Apocalypse Now and at one point actually had to choose which movie to make. I'm glad he decided on SW personally. Reading about the work that went on to set up ILM reminded me a little bit of my humble forays into the study of filmmaking around that time frame such as at De Anza College under Todd Flinchbaugh (who passed away in 1994) where I worked on a student film called "If At First You Don't Succeed" that was animated cutouts similar to the way they make "South Park". We had to make it on 16mm film (before video) and I never saw it again after the initial showing at a student film festival. I still have some of the artwork somewhere. I also worked on some preliminary production designs for a movie that I don't think ever got made. It had a script and a crew and we met off and on for around a year before I lost track of them. I still have artwork and a script from that one as well. Also took an animation class at Mission College from a guy named Sam Comstock, who worked at ILM on various projects.

I also finished the "At War With The Wind" book this week. Got to take all of the library books back next week. Located Lauri's book on the Santa Clara city library online catalog - is that cool or what? They have two copies listed with one on the Young Adult shelf. Check it out here. 

Uh-oh, that's not good

Top of the 5th inning. Randy Johnson just gave up a 3 run homer to the opposing pitcher! 4-1 Milwaukee. Giants won yesterday 10-6 behind homers from Bengie, Rowand and Winn.

Received birthday cards today as well as emails from family. Thanks for all of the notes and words of encouragement from everyone.

Top of 6th: Sitting here watching the Giants game with Lauri and both of us are typing away on our laptops. Lloyd Braun's brother Ryan just doubled. Side now retired - sweet.

Bottom of 6th - Freddie Lewis leading off. Dribbled a 20-hopper into right field right after they showed a shot of another little kid wearing eye black. Bengie smokes one down the third base line and Hall makes a great stop - throws out the slowest runner in the league. Big deal - I could throw him out. Sandoval strikes out lookin on a good curve ball. Ishikawa grounds out to 'Saul' Weeks (thanks for that one, Lauri) at 2nd to retire the side.

Top of 7th - might go SJ Giants game tomorrow night since we have tix (great catch by Freddie Lew in left to retire the side). The SJ Giants have Buster Posey, Connor Gillespe and a bunch of the good young pitchers so we might see some of them.

Bottom of 7th - Rowand leading off - pounds his second double of the game to deep right field. Little Richie Aurilia pinch hitting now. Grounded out to third. Winn 2-out rbi single to right. 4-2 Brewers. Renteria batting ... count is 1-2 and Winn steals second. Ball 3 in the dirt. Walked and that will bring in a left hander to face Lewis. 2-1 count ... wild pitch ... ball four and they're loaded up for Bengie.

UPDATE: there is no joy in Mudville cause Mighty Bengie has grounded out. Nothing more happens to change the outcome so the Giants drop the second game of the season 4-2. 

PS - Nick Anderhart, a rookie pitcher with the LA Angels died in a car crash hours after throwing 6 shutout innings at the A's. 

The game has begun

Yes - the Giants have started their regular season. I sneaked a peek and Tim Lincecum didn't make it out of the 4th inning against the Brewers but Rowand has just hit a homer to pull ahead. Lot's of baseball left to play.

I promised the link to the new Zombie video - here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gq7OufztLk

Birthdays and baseball

Sooooooo, I turned 50 today and I'm still alive! Baseball opened up yesterday with only one game but I have pitcher Derrick Lowe on my Scoresheet team and he pitched great. Giants don't play until tomorrow and I can hardly wait.

Finished up another video last night with Lauri's help on voice-over work. I may put a link up soon here so stay tuned. WARNING - it will be a little gruesome since it is about zombies...

Books I'm reading now

Here's the short list of books I am reading or have read recently. Library cards are cool again...

Nonfiction

Big Boy Rules - mercenaries in Iraq

Stephen King - biography

The Star Wars Story - behind the scenes of the making ...

Planet Simpson - the story of the Simpsons

100 Baseball Places to Visit

Fiction

Without Warning - John Birmingham

Everthing's Eventual - short stories by Stephen King

And now, two items for my birthday...

First, the good one - the man chair. Gift from Lauri and it's a beaut! Shorter than normal recliner cause it is a game chair - see pic:

Now the second thing - someone sideswiped my car while it was in front of my house last night. Took the driver's side mirror clean off. The police caught the guy after he had hit a number of cars on our street. 

Nice shootin' Tex...

Finished my latest montage video this weekend and it began as an homage to snipers but expanded somewhat to include any "nice shots" from movies. Turned out pretty good, at least I'm happy with it and Lauri enjoyed it more now that I took out all of the 'pink mist' headshots. That turned it from an "R" - rating to now more of a PG-13. Not that she minds the gore but it was a little intense.

Boomsticker - Zombie Hunter

I think I have figured it out now - as long as I play CODWAW Zombie mode I enjoy the game much more than in the regular multiplayer because in Zombie mode all four players are on the same side operating as a squad - the AI is the enemy. My wife can't seem to understand why anyone would even play Zombie mode because there isn't an end goal other than survival until the next round.  I tried to explain that was the only reason to play was to simply survive it didn't seem to be enough.

Here is my new logo (or apgclan.net signature):

Call of Duty World at War

Why do I play this game at all? I am so terrible at it yet cannot seem to stay away for very long. It reminds me daily of what my current physical condition has sunk to but for some strange stupid reason I come back again and again to desperately attempt to rank up. The previous version of the game (Call of Duty 4 Modern Combat) was tough in its own way but there were times when I could compete but when they went back to the WW2 weaponry I have just lost it.

New maps were released yesterday and I still am looking for my first successful game on any of the three. Even the new zombie map has frozen my out twice now - although both times the problem was hardware, not humanware.

Welcome to the land of the "Free"

Yep, I am now using a free blog to replace "Jameys-Brain", my previous website. Couldn't afford the $10 a month to have it hosted with a unique domain name. Oh well...

SIMPLE PLEASURE OF THE DAY:
You get one of those interesting catalogs in the mail (you know which ones I am talking about - lot's of funny t-shirts and movie memorabilia) and half way through it you realize that two pages have stuck together. You manage to pry them apart and there is a page full of more cool stuff you will never buy but you might have missed! Maybe it is just me then ...

Stay tuned for more rambling from the Man Cave in SC.