Humming A New Tune

All of us get different songs stuck in our head from time to time. This is not earth-shattering news. For me though it's usually a song I've heard many times and it just sticks with me from memory.

Then there are other occasions when I hear a song only once and find myself humming the tune or even some of the words many hours or days later.

Such was the case last Sunday. I heard a certain song and it stuck with me (8 days and counting). I even searched for it online just to hear the full thing, which isn't really that long anyway. Nevertheless, I thought I'd share one of my new favorite songs with you my loyal reader(s).

Independence Day

So last Friday (July 4) we went down to Cincinnati to a Reds game. As we were entering the stadium there were people taking pictures of some of that day's spectators. As the young lady snapped a couple of pictures of me she gave me a card telling me where to find them online. They can be found here and here.

I think most people get their picture taken as a group, but my group had pretty well split up at that moment so all the photographer had to work with was just me.

The game itself was a good one, once it got going that is. There was a rain delay that pushed it back almost two hours. The game itself took less that two and a half hours to play.

The highlight for me was my favorite player, Ken Griffey Jr., clubbing a two-run homer in the bottom of the first. They added another run later in the game and won 3-0.

A Six-Week Absence

They say absence makes the heart grow stronger.

They should also mention that absence makes the blog readers grow impatient and weary, and eventually threatening of the very one they so admire (the blogger). They also fall in love with the "!" key. If you don't believe me then please look at the "comments" section of the previous post.

But enough of all of that. I'm glad to finally be back after suffering for so many weeks with no internet connection to my computer. I lost the connection during the bad storms we had in the last week of May, and it has only gotten back to normal in the last few days.

I've missed almost all of June, and what a month it was. I've missed so many great blog opportunities. Maybe I'll find time to go back and weave some of those stories into my future posts.

At the time of the disconnection I was also working on what was to be an entire series of new posts. Look for that series to appear in the next week or so.

The Preakness

Last Saturday my new favorite horse was at it again. Big Brown won the Preakness Stakes in convincing fashion, pushing his career record to 5-0.

I was driving home from playing golf with friends in southern Indiana and missed seeing the race. I couldn't even pick it up on radio! Oh well, he still won.

I fully intend to watch the Belmont Stakes coming up a week from Saturday. Should Big Brown win he'd be only the 12th horse to win the triple crown in 130-some years. I kind of look at it like history in the making.

I looked for a good picture of the UPS logo on the pants of jockey Kent Desormeaux and this was the best I could find.

Mother's Day '08

I would say that my Mother's Day this year can be best described by that familiar phrase: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

I was priviledged enough to be able to go to church with my mom Sunday morning. Not only that, but I kind of slipped into Dad's seat so I got to sit right beside her. This was a unique experience for me.

Growing up Dad and Mom always sat right next to each other, meaning that we had to choose either to sit on Dad's right or Mom's left. For whatever reason, I almost always sat closer to Dad. So like I said, this was a unique opportunity for me.

The Bad

The three of us kids felt like we should prepare the Sunday meal for Mom. Great idea right? Well, we thought so anyways.

Bryan kind of took the lead and informed us that he was going to try to make quesadillas for our main course. And they actually turned out pretty good. He put a lot of effort and time into it. The problem was that ... well ... uh ... his cooking set off the smoke detectors! There's a often used (but rarely funny) line around our house that "you know dinner is almost ready when the smoke detector goes off". Unfortunately, that wasn't the case on Sunday. Between the relative difficulty of grilling quesadillas on a stove top and the fact that we had too many cooks in the kitchen (namely me), dinner wasn't ready until almost two o'clock.

The Ugly

Cleanup always seems to be the worst, at least to me. And at times it was quite ugly. The two main cooking pans looked horrible. The one was very black inside (thus the smoke) and also had something baked onto the outside. The second had been used for rice and the bottom of that one was burnt as well. Bryan and I got busy working on those as Kim cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. After the dishwasher was loaded to capacity, we came to the realization that we had used more dishes than normal and that we'd have to wash some by hand. Ugh! Thankfully that part wasn't too bad and the rest of the cleanup was uneventful.

The Run For The Roses

Today is the day of the 134th Kentucky Derby. I almost always grab the newspaper on the day of the Derby and pick a horse to cheer for. I never actually bet on the race, just try to predict who I think will win. I rarely pick the right one.

This year the choice is obvious. I'm picking the number 20 starter, Big Brown. He's the odds-on favorite to win the race, and my favorite based solely on his name. Here is the entire starting lineup.

I have found that the owner of Big Brown has strong ties to UPS and that his name is no coincidence. In fact, if you read this article you'll find that a UPS delivery man was at a recent news conference and made a "delivery" of a bale of hay to the young horse with the address marked as "Kentucky Derby winner's circle".

Like I said, the pick is obvious for me. Now all I have to do is sit back and watch my horse try to win the biggest race of his life. Go Big Brown!

The Talk of Gasoline Alley

It kind of snuck up on me, but May is here. I still haven't flipped my calendar from April, but there's no doubt what month it is.

I was driving home from work earlier in the week with my radio tuned to 1070AM and heard the familiar voice of Donald Davidson. Every year at this time he broadcasts "The Talk of Gasoline Alley" which is a nightly call-in show about the history of the Indianapolis 500.

Gasoline Alley is the name of the garage area at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It's a bit outdated though, seeing how the cars haven't run on gasoline since 1964.

Even so, it's my favorite radio show. Too bad it's only on one month a year, huh?

If you like auto racing at all, I'm sure you would get a thrill out of listening to him reminisce about former figures from all kinds of racing. While his specialty is the "500" (he's the track's historian), he is well versed in all forms of racing.

If you ever had a question about anything related to the Indianapolis 500, he would be the one to ask. He knows it all (I think)!