I love Armor All

I just cleaned the inside of my car yesterday for the first time since I got it over a year ago. That's about the only productive thing I did this weekend. But man, it was all worth it when I got in this morning and my butt slid on the shiny black leather and the dashboard was gleaming in the sun as I drove to work. It was amazing; it made my weekend feel a little more productive than it was. Now, if only I had washed the exterior... Oh well, I can't really see that when I'm driving anyway.

Joe Crede

So for the past 3-4 years (except when injured last year) I've said that Joe Crede is perhaps the most talented defensive 3rd baseman in baseball, and a pretty damn good clutch hitter too. Here's what Mark Grace (longtime Cub) had to say on the Fox broadcast of the Sox-Cubs game today:

Not a better defensive third baseman in all of baseball.

Thanks Mark! Now go tell all the people who keep giving Eric Chavez the Gold Glove!!! Joe should have had at least one by now, and if he doesn't get one this year I'll have a serious problem respecting the Gold Glove awards in the future.

Another decent book...

I wrote a detailed list of my favorite authors a couple days ago, but I left out Raymond Khoury. He wrote The Last Templar, and I think he has another book out, but I'm not buying the hardcover. Anyway, Templar is similar to some of Dan Brown's work (historical thriller), and I recommend reading it also if you're looking for something to grab you.

Proof that I rock

Here's some proof that I officially rock. Apparently, two-thirds of the last 6 presidents have been left-handed, and McCain and Obama are both lefty's too (thanks Kottke). In fact, in several of the elections both major candidates have been left-handed. You should read the article, it talks about how you only use half your brain, and I use all of mine!

I'm done jumping up and down now

I'm back in my seat. I can't believe the stuff I missed being behind reading my RSS feeds. If you click the title link you'll read a wonderful article, perhaps the most wonderful article I've read in quite some time. On August 15th, just in time for football, Comcast will be carrying the Big Ten Network! That's like 30 football / basketball games I won't have to miss anymore. Ahhhh, a sweet sigh of relief.

Warning: gaydar may be faulty

I was trying to catch up on some of my Google Reader feeds that have been neglected, when I came across the article linked in the title of this post. It's an editorial about an article the writer found in the LA Times about a study that found some interesting things regarding sexual orientation and genetic traits.

The story mentions one study that found that the hair of gay men was 3.5 times more likely to grow in a counterclockwise fashion.

Still another found that men who were left-handed were 34 percent more likely to be gay. That figure grew to 90 percent for women.

Holy cow! So if you don't know me, my wife and I are both left handed (and heterosexual). So we notice other leftys, and I really doubt the lefty remark above is true. I'd love to see who they actually studied to come to these conclusions, and would hope they try and look at people from all areas of the country.

Anyway, besides the lefty thing, and depending on how the media twisted their results, this could be a pretty ground braking study that could essentially prove that being gay is not always a choice, but genetic. If they can prove it, that would be a huge step toward certain people (and church denominations) becoming less homophobic. Granted it would take a while, and these results could be totally wacky. The editorial author does bring up a good point, that if they can find pinpoint accurate traits, what if someone doesn't want their orientation known, but has those traits?

Remember: "90% of statistics can be made to say whatever you want, 50% of the time." What a great commercial...

The Hunt for Patriot Six

In case you were wondering, this will be a post about books I've read, and recommend.

If you're like me, you rarely read anything (including required high school literature) until Harry Potter came along. It even took me until after I saw the second movie to start reading them. That was good though, because the first two books were pretty juvenile (I read them after getting through 5). Anyway, for those of you out there who need constantly thrilling / intense plot to stick with a book, I thought I'd share my experiences with books / authors who easily grabbed my attention, in the order I discovered them, obviously.

1) Harry Potter series. These are easily some of the best books I've read. I'm sure the books I was supposed to read in high school can compare, but when I'm supposed to take notes in them and find the oh so obvious metaphors, it loses my interest (except for Crime and Punishment). Back to Harry, J.K. Rowling does an awesome job keeping you hooked through all 7 books (about 3000 pages). If you haven't read them, READ THEM NOW!!! I'd skip the first 2 if you've seen the movies.

2) Dan Brown. Granted I don't believe the conspiracies in his stories AT ALL, but all of his books make for great entertainment. I got hooked on him after stealing Bob's DaVinci Code on the ride home from Arizona / Las Vegas. I read them all quickly. Extreme mystery / thrillers.

3) John Grisham. I really have no idea how I got into Grisham's work. By chance I picked up The Broker, I think it was for a plane ride. I liked it's legal-thrilling plot so much that I decided to read The Firm, and The Street Lawyer. I recommend all of them, but The Firm is heads above the others, throwing some mafioso-ness into his usual lawyer themes. You know the books are good when just about all of them have been made into major motion pictures. The last time I was home I found out my mom has basically all of his books, so that's nice. I'll just "borrow" them from her. Too bad they're hardcover. I prefer the lighter, smaller cheap little paperbacks that always come out a year later.

4) Tom Clancy. Like Grisham, the major motion picture thing holds true for Clancy, plus a video game series. It's even a bonus because of Harrison Ford. For a guy, Tom Clancy books are the best. They are CIA/military thrillers. I started with Rainbow Six, another airport buy I think. As you can tell, the title of the post is a Clancy mash of the two I've read already, Six and The Hunt for Red October, and the one I'm currently reading, Patriot Games. Once I read Six, I looked up all the books he wrote. I decided to start at the beginning (by publish date) with Red October. I was going to stick to the publish date, but his second book was not a Jack Ryan novel, the protagonist in a handful of his novels. So I skipped one and went to Patriot Games. Unfortunately, it takes place before Red October, and I don't know if he meant to write them in that order, or it was an afterthought. Anyway, I'm sticking to the publish date. I plan to go through all of the Ryan novels in this manner. Ryan eventually works with John Clark, who is the main protagonist in Six, so I'll continue with those. Then maybe I'll read his other couple of fiction works without either character.

I would highly recommend all of the above. Be warned that you will get hooked quick.

If you have any suggestions on where I should look after Clancy, please let me know.

"In the garage where I belong."

-Weezer.

I used to poke fun at my dad with that song. Now, I find myself getting more excited at the possibilities of my own garage. Granted, it's not a welding shop / online poker room / cigar lounge for one, but it's mine. I've just started organizing it, and getting everything up off of the floor. Check out the album below. I know, I'm a dork, but I can't help it. Go find Weezer's "In the Garage" and you'll know what I mean.

I think I'll be adding a work bench where the tools are right now, and just sliding the golf stuff onto the side wall. Suggestions?

In the garage...

Chik-fil-a, I mean McDonalds chicken sandwich...

I drove past a McDonald's on the way home today, and the message under the Golden Arches said "Try our southern style chicken sandwich." Now if you're from the midwest like me, you may not have known this, but the great, grand, new McDonald's southern style chicken sandwich is an EXACT CARBON COPY of Chick-fil-a's chicken sandwich! Same bun, same breaded chicken breast, same pickle(s). And did I mention Chick-fil-a has been around for quite a while, so this is nothing new. Did I also mention that McDonald's even newer breakfast chicken biscuit is an EXACT CARBON COPY of Chick-fil-a's chicken biscuit? Yeah, you can google chick-fil-a vs. McDonald's and you'll get a shit ton of blogs and articles comparing the two. IDENTICAL! McDonald's should be sued.

Come out already!

For at least a few months (probably when they changed our due date from 7/16 to 7/7) Linnea and I have thought that we would have our baby quite a bit earlier than the due date. Well, it's less than 3 weeks away, and Linnea is feeling just about as normal as usual, besides the fact that we know he's in position to go. The window is closing I guess, and we're getting the feeling that he's not going to come early at all. Obviously this is fine if he's not ready yet, if not everything is fully developed yet. But based on his size, we thought that he was, and it would be nice to have him soon, as we're dying to be parents and Linnea is ready to sleep on her stomach and back again. Also, I'm ready for my 2 week vacation from work. Oh well, he'll come when he comes I guess.

Congrats to the Celtics. I was absolutely disinterested in this series, but man, the Celtics laid a beatdown tonight.

We found this little par 3/4 9 hole course right down the road from us today! I'm so excited, it only costs $8! There's a range there too, with heaters for cold weather. It looks like a tiny, crappy course, but for the money (and the location), it looks to be an easy option to go swing the clubs within an hour.

Weekend recap

I guess I forgot to post about all the awesome stuff that happened this weekend. First of all, my parents and brother came down to visit, so that was cool for Fathers' Day. We went golfing on Saturday, and I won! Granted, I shot a 104, but hey, I still won. Oh, by the way, that's a 104 playing by all the rules, like the actual rules in the rule book, unlike everyone else I know who says they shoot in the 80's and suck worse than me. O.K., so I accidentally dropped my ball on the green once and didn't give myself the 2 strokes, but it rolled down the hill and I was putting up the hill, so I saw no gained advantage there.

Sunday was eventful too. First we went to church, then had my dad's famous fried eggs. In case you live in a hole, this thing called the U.S. Open was going on, with a dude named Tiger in the lead after Saturday's round. He's never lost the lead in the 4th round of a Major tournament. Never. Well, he sort of lost it during the final round, but fought back and made a huge birdie putt on 18 to force an 18 hole playoff on Monday, messed up knee and all. It was crazy. So Monday it was Tiger vs. Rocco Mediate, a 45 year old with a bad back. This dude is awesome. Now normally playoffs are sudden death, and EVERYONE crumbles under the pressure of playing against Tiger. This playoff was a whole extra round, and Tiger was up 3 on Rocco at one point. It's in the bag. But no, Rocco somehow jumped back ahead of Tiger by one stroke by the last hole! How awesome is that dude? At this point I'm torn between rooting for Tiger or Rocco, but I stick to my guns and root for Tiger and his messed up knee (almost made him fall to the ground after shots). So what happens? Sand for Rocco, and Tiger birdies to tie it back up! Now, after 90 holes of golf, they're going to sudden death. Tiger wins the first sudden death hole as Rocco hits the beach again. Too bad for Rocco, but he might be the only 2nd place finisher everyone remembers, a truly awesome performance when most would crumble. Anyway, congrats to Tiger. He won his 14th Major and set a record for most wins at a single course (7 at Torrey Pines, I played there - 98 I think).

FINALLY, Dale Jr. won! For the first time in over 2 years. He won on a fuel mileage deal, but I don't care, HE WON!!! He's got enough top 10's this year to prove he's as good a driver as anybody in NASCAR, and this win is a huge morale booster for a team already 3rd in points. I can't wait to see what happens now.

Golf

So I was going to write a post on how amazing Tiger's second nine was today in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines (the front nine, but played after the back; I totally played this course - South - a year an a half ago and broke 100 right before the Buick Invitational), but then I thought about how I posted so excitedly about the White Sox, who then lost 3 straight. But then they won again today, so I said "what the hell."

Tiger Woods is freaking awesome. Flat out amazing. He didn't play a full round between the Master's (April) and earlier this week, due to knee surgery. He didn't even walk that 18 holes earlier this week. His first round pretty much sucked (for him), finishing +1. The interesting topic all week was the top 3 in the world paired together (Tiger, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott). They were all mediocre yesterday. But today, they were even worse! All three were about +3 after 9 holes. Then what happens? Tiger shoots one shot off of the lowest score for 9 holes EVER to end the day -2 and T4. Obviously Lefty and Scott continued mediocrity in the face of greatness. Gosh, I wonder what would have happened to them had Tiger been healthy and about 5 shots in front of everyone else? This is his most successful course after all.

In closing, lets just think about how freaking awesome Tiger Woods is one more time... O.K., great.

Time management?

Who knew such a thing existed? If you know me, you know I obviously didn't. Below is a piece by Linda Stone (no idea...) via Taylor, via someone else. She doesn't take into account that habitual procrastinators like myself need poor time management in order to start things dangerously close to the time due in order to maximize efficiency. That's my excuse at least...

1. Each evening or morning before you start your day, make a short list of your intentions (the result and feeling of something you want) for the day and by each, write the related to do’s for that day. Try to keep your list to 5 intentions. Consciously choose what you will do and what you will not do. Keep a different list of what you will review for inclusion on other days.

2. List only what you really expect to do that day. As other things come to mind, write them on a separate list. By putting these items on a separate list, you are creating the space to be in the moment with each of your day’s priorities. Review that list as you plan for the next day and determine how they fit in to your plans. Give yourself some down time, enjoy your successes at the end of the day.

3. Give yourself meaningful blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on each intention. Turn OFF technology each day during those blocks and focus on your intentions.

4. At home, be clear about what technology you’ll use and where. Computer in the kitchen? Maybe not. A friend of mine just removed the computer from her kitchen and said she is now far less likely to stop to constantly check email or news. In the kitchen, she pays attention to her family and prepares food. Sometimes they do group family activities at the kitchen table. When she heads into her office to work on her computer, her children know not to disturb her while she works. Untethered technology gives us the freedom to do nearly anything, anytime, anywhere. It can also enslave us - we feel compelled to use it where ever it is. Technology is neutral. How, when and where we use it is up to us.

- Linda Stone — who coined the terms “continuous partial attention” — writes about her tips for time management, based on her survey of successful, busy (and often powerful) people about their strategies for managing it all.

I guess I'll never be a successful, busy (and often powerful) people (as I write this during work). My to do lists are always too long and only get half done at best, and we have a computer in the kitchen. I like point 3 the best though. If I don't have more than an hour to do work, I usually waste time.

I know, but I can't help it

I know you're probably sick of hearing about the Sox, but I just can't help it! They are just stomping on the Twins. They're through 3 of 4 games with the Twins, and we'll just say the Twins are lucky the AL central is down, because we just put them under 0.500 and they're still in second place by about 4 games over the Indians. Anyway, it has got to be the best feeling in the world when your team plays the team they are fighting with, and just cleans up with them! Here's some of the awesomeness that's been going on, but don't worry, I got it all from one article, I'm not that devoted to the stats:

6 game winning streak
33 runs in the last 3 games
Gavin Floyd (HUGE acquisition, thanks Kenny) 9 Ks tonight
15 or more hits in 3 straight games, first time since 1932

Man, I can't get enough. As side sporting notes: did you see that almost comeback by the Lakers tonight? That was almost crazy. I'm also happy to see Kyle Busch finish dead last at Pocono today. Junior's still in 3rd (4th place finish today), but about 120 points closer to first.

We basically stole it...

So Linnea and I went to buy our Baby Bjorn strap-on carrier thingy at Target, and we saw this new model called the air carrier (more ventilated, supposedly cooler), but it was only $25 instead of the $80 for the original carrier. Anyway, we know from previous research that good carriers just aren't that cheap, so we didn't buy anything and decided to go research this new model. Well, it turns out that it's really like $100. It's even $100 ON THE TARGET.COM SITE!!!!!!! What did we do? Of course I'll tell you. We went back to Target and bought that sucker for $25! Don't believe me on the price? Check it out here. Totally awesome, we saved 75%! I wanted to capitalize on this and buy them all, then return them (without receipt for a store credit) to another Target, but Linnea wouldn't let me.

Crashing the top 10

I just thought I would mark this day in history as the day the White Sox crashed the top 10 plays on SportsCenter tonight:

Top play #8: Orlando Cabrera charges in hard and makes a bare-hand play to first.
Top play #7: Paul Konerko makes a jumping/diving catch of a line-drive down the line.
Top play #2: Jermaine Dye makes a diving catch near the line to end the game. Sox win.

I don't think I've ever seen one of my teams get 3 plays on the list in one night. Awesome. They also hit 4 homers tonight. I think they did that a couple of games ago too.

Side note: The Sox have won 4 in a row (granted, 3 against the Royals) since Ozzie's last antics. Personally, I think it was over-hyped, but hey, I guess it worked if he did it on purpose.

You can put it on the board.....Yes!

Thanks Hawk and D.J. for that oh so exciting homer call over the years. Back to the post at hand: Go White Sox! Hopefully that amazing walk off homer by Paulie will bust him out of his .200 BA slump, because it's pretty pathetic. I guess a previous post was proven about needing Tums for Bobby Jenks after he blew the 2 run lead in the 9th to send this thing 15 innings. It's not often you can turn the game on in the 7th inning and still see a 9 inning game. Grueling. I almost fell asleep.

Side notes: Welcome back Esteban Loaiza, I guess. I haven't heard anything about him in a while, so I don't know whether to be happy about returning one of our former All-Stars or not. We'll see I guess. Also, too bad Alexi Ramirez is basically the best thing since sliced bread, maybe even better than acquiring Carlos Quentin, because I really like Juan Uribe, but it looks like he may not be starting anymore. Dude made 4 bare-handed last second plays at second base last night! How about writing him into the All-Star ballot along with Quentin??

I guess so

Well it's a good thing we didn't try to sleep in the basement, it would have been pointless. Shortly after the last post things died down and there was only a little bit of lightning in the distance. So we went to bed. The fence is still up, my grill is still there.

Too precautious?

I guess when you're expecting a baby you're more precautious than normal? I guess Linnea and I are at least. Central Illinois has been getting hammered with storms all day, extremely bad storms with tornado warnings and sirens and all that tonight. So what did we do? We set up the extra tv with the bunny ears, moved the futon across the basement, and are hanging out with all our extra crap as we speak. Oh yeah, we even have a battery powered radio, LED windup flashlight, bottle of water and our dog, just in case. It looks like the tornadoes are over, but more may be coming from the west. I guess we could go upstairs now, as there's not too much lightning any more either, but Linnea's already taken 4 Tums (not due to Bobby Jenks), so I guess we'll continue our basement party a little longer. We're not fooling around here, we've even got pillows in case the shit keeps hitting the fan all night.

Heroes in a Half-Shell

So what do you watch when presented with handfuls of movies on TV, many of them very good? Well let me tell you...

If you were a kid in the late '80s - early '90s, watched the cartoon all the time, even bought the cartoon movies, saw the actual movies (the first two anyway) in theaters, had 4 cases full of pristine action figures, Donatello's blimp, the sewer, the Technodome, the sewer boat, etc., this is what you would watch:

Of course I'm talking about the double feature of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on ABC Family! Obviously they weren't the best movies I had to choose from, but man was I sucked into them. I don't think I've seen them for about 10 years or more. Wait, let me clarify that I'm only talking about the first two, the original and "the secret of the ooze." The third one was kind of crappy and I did not go to see that in theaters. Anyway, it was amazing; I forgot how great they really were.

This reminds me that I need to find all of those Ninja Turtle toys from my parents' house. Too bad I gave the blimp away.