Happy July 4

Warning: No research was done in the completion of today’s blog.

So Kenny Rogers, he of the 20-game suspension by MLB, gets voted onto the All-Star team. I’m going to guess, as I’ve done no research, that two White Sox players made the team. There is home-field advantage in the World Series at stake, but still the All-Star game is virtually meaningless. The Home-Run Derby has changed from eight participants to eight players from different countries. Wow, that’s going to get me tuning in. I’m rooting for the Canadian.

Thanks to the magic of the online MLB radio package, I listened to part of the White Sox/As game yesterday afternoon. It was another feeble offensive effort by the Pale Hose. A throwing error by Mark Buerhle on a routine double-play ball let the As take the lead and eventually win the game and the series. With Damaso Marte on the DL and highly paid batting practice pitchers Kevin Walker and Luis Vizcaino getting work in tough situations, losses like this might become more common for the Sox. I don’t pay a ton of attention to box scores every day, but it seems like Frank Thomas is trying solely to hit home runs at this point. He already has nine, and is maybe a season and a half short of 500 for his career. The offense is struggling of late, and only the uber starting pitching keeps the team in games over the past week. Another bat, say at least a competent bench guy, and possibly another middle reliever wouldn’t help. An opportunity like this for the Sox isn’t going to come up very often, so they need to make the best of it.

My seven-week sabbatical from flag-football came to an end this weekend. My back held up but my legs are sore two days after the fact. Even with Atlanta’s usual 120% humidity the games are a lot of fun. Luckily there was a new guy so I didn’t get picked on. After turning 30 it’s a simple matter of paying attention to my body. For a few days I thought I was finished, and now I think I might play for another decade.

I am a little down for a couple of reasons. We just bought a Dell laptop and it’s stuck on the blue screen of death. Alison started putting software on the machine this morning and it didn’t like one of our selections. Because Windows XP Professional was installed on the computer there is no recovery disk. Great idea, guys. It took yours truly a few hours just to find the power cord when the battery died. The laptop makes it possible for us to both work at the same time.

An old friend gave me a lead on an excellent job opportunity last week. It was exciting because the job was part-time and paid more than my current full-time job. The catch was that I’d have to learn a new industry in approximately one week. I threw myself into the endeavor, and once I had forwarded the appropriate materials to my friend I waited. Two days later I sent a desperate e-mail. It was not unlike the phone call to the person with which you shared a promising date but then disappeared into the ether. It seems that my friend, who’s new with this company, isn’t doing so well in his current position and is thinking about quitting. There goes my in.

I’ve decided to be a good example and remain positive about the experience. In a week I picked up enough knowledge to speak intelligently on a completely new industry. If nothing else I can pull this information out at parties. I can bore people on a subject other than my recent fantasy-football drafts.