Reason #453243 I'm glad to live in Nashville..

Parking Rules Defied in South Boston
Parking, snow..
This story has all the elements that make me glad I live here in Nashville now

NewsFlash! Men put off Christmas Shopping!

Is this really news to anyone?

Merry Christmas!

Click here for a very special Christmas greeting, made especially for you...

Damn you, J.J. Abrams...

Damn you to Hell!

5 Golden Tuques!

Snow Drift!

Caught this note from our local newspaper tonight:

A half-inch of snow is expected to accumulate in and around Nashville, Boyd said.

Whoop!! Whoop!! Battlestations!! we may have a half inch of snow coming in tomorrow night! You think I'm joking? Read on:

Tennessee Department of Transportation and Metro Public Works crews are standing ready to spread salt and possibly brine on area roadways.

"Remember the Mitchell Report"

I can't put my finger on it, but something in all the coverage the last two days of the release of the Mitchell Report is missing. There's just something not there.
Maybe this article by Howard Bryant on ESPN.com gets at it..

By not addressing the statistics produced during more than a decade of drug use, Mitchell left his report open to the notion that the sensation produced by the names in the report is more important than the long-term implications of how this period in history is interpreted.

I've not really composed my thoughts on this coherently.. and I've only scratched the surface on all the material that's been produced in the wake of the report..

But here, in very brief, are my basic reservations:
1) Bryant uses the phrase more than a decade of drug use... Does everyone think the 'doping' in baseball started only in 1997 or so? Does no one remember how people were talking about Jose Canseco as early as 1987? Remember the Bash Brothers? We all knew what was happening in that A's clubhouse. Maybe it goes back even farther than that year, but I can't recall anyone with that much muscle mass in baseball prior to that time. This has been in baseball, and noticeably so, for two solid decades. Period.

2) so much focus on the Yankees and the Championships. Are they tainted? Undeniably. More tainted than EVERY RECORD BROKEN SINCE 1987? No way. Not even close.

No Geoff, here's to you...

Spent a little time tonight watching Nashville's own Geoff Smith do a live Christmas 'party', courtesy of Cali Lewis's GeekBriefTV.com uStream feed..
Good times.. a few songs.. a few toasts... and some "Friends in Low Places..."
Nice work, Geoff. We're looking forward to making it out some night to Geoff's bar here in town, The Big Bang.

Rack him!

Frank Caliendo appeared on Mike and Mike this morning and he had me crying I was laughing so hard as I was driving Aidan to school this morning.. bless ESPN for putting this video up on their site today..


Love the Jim Rome impression... they don't keep it in this clip, but as he was signing off, Caliendo went back into his Rome voice and said "That was a good job by you, better job by me.. Rack me!" Priceless.

Follow me to freedom!

While we're on the topic of favorite commercials..

"Like a lawnchair..."

I still love this commercial from FedEx.. ever have days like this in the office? Man, I do..

Silly Nashvillians

Memo to East Nashville--

You want to live in an urban environment. You're disdainful of the suburban Brentwood soccer moms.. you like to think of yourself as hardened city dwellers. "My house has a fire escape on it," you think to yourself. You're tougher than the average pansie Nashvillian. Plus, the coffee shops are better.

Well, I've got news for you: living in a city means living with noise. It means living with planes flying over your heads.

You don't want to live under a flight path? Move to Lebanon. We can't keep the planes flying over impoverish, swarthy Antioch forever. And hey, I lived in Antioch for 8 years, with planes flying over 7 and 8 times a day. I know how it is. And I know how it is to tune that kind of white city noise out.

East Nashville, being urban is about more than funky cafes and rot-iron encircled herb gardens. It's time to put on your big-city britches... Then again, there are plenty of good homes available in Lebanon.

"I smell an astronaut!"

Hey Manundso.. don't ask me why, but when I saw this, I thought of you...

So long, Donnie Baseball...

So the Yankees have selected Joe Girardi as their new manager over 1st Base Coach Tony Pena and Bench Coach Don Mattingly...
I had misgivings about the Yanks cutting Joe Torre loose..
but nothing about this whole scenario has affected me as much as this:
the thought of Don Mattingly in any uniform other than Yankee Pinstripes..

Because, apparently now that the job is Girardi's, Donnie Baseball has told the Yanks that he's gone as well.. and speculation seems to be that he'll follow Torre wherever he may land-- currently that would appear to be in the LA Dodgers dugout.

Don Mattingly a Dodger?

Mattingly was a boyhood hero for me, growing up. He was everything that was right and humble and work-a-day about baseball. Go out, put the bat on the ball, help your team win.

I realized a few days ago that I just couldn't support Mattingly for the manager's job. He's got no management experience at any level. And the last thing I'd want would be a Mattingly tenue to go down in flames... so Girardi seems like the right choice.. for right now..
But there's a big part of me that hopes that Mattingly will be back in a Yanks uniform before too long.. in some capacity.. and at some point, running the show from the dugout.

(Photo credit: NY Daily News)

LSB: Tim Brown Interview

Legends of South Bend, Aaron Taylor's fairly new Irish website, Aaron catches up with Tim Brown for a pretty good (and quick) interview... makes you feel good to be ND..

Forecast

The forecast for Pound, VA where I'll be for the weekend..

October Frenzy and ND Reflections after 6 weeks

October always seems to be such a crazy month for us. There always seems to be a trip or two, along with SleepyMama's birthday, Halloween.. it just gets crammed.. and this year's edition is no different.
We led off the month last weekend with a trip to Louisville-- second time back there in three weeks-- for an old college friend's wedding-- a costume wedding. Okay, so it was a costume reception-- we didn't actually get to attend the wedding, itself.. but that may have been a good thing.
As it is, the boys are now spoiled on weddings. The first time we have to dress them up for a formal occasion, they're going to ask why they couldn't wear their knight and pirate costumes again.
It was a great time, though-- I've posted a bunch of pictures here and we're really grateful to all our friends up in L'ville once again for a good time visiting and letting our kids barge in on their weekend plans.

This was, of course, the first ND game of the season I didn't get to see. Not because of the wedding.. we were finished and back at the hotel by halftime.. but ABC aired the Ohio State game instead-- wisely, I'm sorry to say.
And this would be the week that the Irish pull one out.
By all accounts (and according to the stats), the didn't move the ball very well on offense. But the defense was apparently tenacious and ferocious about getting to the ball and ripping it out.



Go D!

So the Irish have avoided all the most worst case scenarios people in the press were starting to throw around-- worst losing streak in school history (it was bad enough, anyway), could go 0-8, or worse yet, winless for the season.... so all that chatter can quiet down now and the team can get on with the business of putting things in place, building a team, growing and strengthening with experience.

Well, I'm likely to miss this weekend's game as well.
I'm heading up into the Smokies in southern Virginia for a weekend at a cabin up there to hang out with some of those same college friends from Louisville.. We'll have the modern conveniences, I believe.. but no internet or cell service.. so possibly no cable or satellite. We'll see. I'm packing some layerable clothes and a few six packs of beer and hitting the road on Friday.

Video-gate: is this for real?

Okay, I've had a little time to get away today-- the family and I all went down to my mom and dad's house in Murfreesboro for a little early celebration of my Dad's birthday.
The weather's cooler and it's really enjoyable to be outside these days, so we had a great afternoon out in the back yard, eating some pizza and some really good carrot cake (courtesy of my lovely, talented sister)...

So now I'm back home, watching the last few minutes of the New England-San Diego ballgame-- the Sunday Night Football matchup this week-- and of course, all the talk is about the Belichick Videotape scandal. I mean, there are some people who are really coming down on the Pats and Belichick. There's clearly some kind of Patriots-dynasty back-lash at work here. People are sick of the Patriots success (still hard to believe for those of us who remember all too clearly the decades of futility the Pats suffered through before 2001) and are seeming to revel in this recent fall from grace. More than that-- they're venomous, calling for the Commissioner to take draft picks, impose fines, and to suspend Belichick for as long as a year. I even heard one caller to a local show propose that the Pats should lose two home games next year.

All this seems to go a bit far.

I've not really had a chance to talk about this-- and I'm sure this will reflect poorly on my character to someone-- but I've got to wonder:
What's all the big deal about?

Okay, so now before anyone starts screaming at me-- you support cheating? Balco! Balco!-- let me explain a little.

1) if coaches don't assume that they're being watched, why do they cover their mouths with their play sheets? Heck, even coaches up in the box have been known to hide their mouths while they're talking.
2) if they don't assume they're being watched or that the opposing team is trying to steal their signals, then why do they have three or four different guys sending in the signals to the defense?

With all that subterfuge on the field, I guess I just assumed that teams were probably filming each other like crazy. At a minimum, I would have figured there'd be a few lipreader 'staff' stationed in the press box, armed with high-powered binoculars trained on various members of the opposing team coaching staff.

I mean, why not?

Week 3 Reflection

There's not much to say. No point in talking about the Michigan game. No sense in going over the tape. There's not one thing to be learned from it.
Coach, I think it's time for some Batting Practice

Bizarro World

This is hard to believe, but today I find myself rooting for Ohio State (against Willingham's Huskies) and Nebraska (against the Trojans)..