Baseball/Summer
It's August and football is just around the corner, but right now BASEBALL is where it's at. I can't believe how well the Sox are playing, even in the beginning of the year when everyone had high expectations, I wouldn't have thought it would be like this. Of course, we are still in 2nd place, but man, what a way to rebound from that awful series getting swept by the Tigers. But looking ahead on the schedule, the road gets tougher. Gotta play the Yankees twice, Boston, Seattle coming up right now, and in a few weeks, another series with those dreaded Tigers. It's too bad they didn't cash in on all the crappy teams in the first half, but oh well. It's time to step it up.
Another team that is hot and needs to step up more is my fantasy team. Most of my readers don't care about my fantasy team, so just skip this. Anyways, hot starting pitching as of late has kind of put me back in the running, 150 pts behind the beast out of Kansas. And tonight, two big head-to-head pitching matchups against the Whiteys. Greg Maddux takes the hill against Nideo Homo, and Mike Mussina faces Tim Hudson. Doesn't get much more huge than that...
*****
Considering there's still a whole month left, it's a little early to do a "summer-in-review", but it really seems like the past couple months have just flown by. I guess when I think about it, a lot of stuff happened, but it feels like just yesterday when it was the end of May and we were at Dennis's graduation. Graduating seniors were giving me resumes to submit at Northrop, and everyone was talking about their plans for their break. Ray came back from Berkeley to take summer school at U of I, and I told him I'd visit him in Champaign for sure. Dan left for Honeywell, and I planned on maybe flying out there one weekend too. Olivia finished her finals, and made me promise to take her to Indiana Dunes sometime before the end of her vacation.
Meanwhile, for me at work, life during the summer months pretty much carries on the same as the rest of the year. The weather is nicer, of course, and the atmosphere is a little more relaxed, but other than that, the beat goes on. Fridays come and go, weeks and then months pass before I even know it. I find myself living from weekend to weekend, and having things planned weeks in advance, instead of calling people up an hour beforehand and expecting everyone to be ready to just pick up and go.
So now it's August, Dan is finishing up at Honeywell, Ray will be headed back to Cali soon, and I haven't managed to visit either of them. There's still a few weekends before Olivia starts her 2nd year of med school, but I don't know whether we'll end up making it to the Dunes or not. The past couple weeks especially have been a blur, working late and trying to stay sane amidst the madness of my surroundings. In a couple weeks, the US Navy is set to make a decision on who to award a large contract to, and if they choose us, it'll be even busier here for at least the next year or two. Which would be good for the company, and thus my job security, but not so good for the rest of my life as far as stress and free time and all that.
Well, for now I'd like to forget about all that stuff and list some of the good times so far this summer:
- Visiting Champaign for the weekend of Dennis's graduation. Softball, Legend's, the Quad, a fountain, Murphy's, and more...
- Rod's graduation party. Filipino Egg Rolls, Miller Lite, Mah-johng, Euchre, and No Limit Holdem
- Great America with the best friends. Waiting over an hour for the Whizzer, screaming on Viper, Superman, Iron Wolf, Raging Bull, and sharing funnel cake.
- A Sox game, a Cubs game, and a Sox-Cubs game. Seeing multiple drunk morons run on the field at US Hellular, one attacking the ump. Then Sammy Sosa getting busted for cork at Wrigley. Back to US Smellular, where we happened to catch the only game the Sox lost at home to the Cubs, while Cubs fans and Sox fans in our section kept getting kicked out for fighting each other.
- Lion's Head, Cherry Red, and Blu. Seems like the only times I see certain friends these days are at bars. I miss you guys, we should really hang out more outside.
- Good movies: Matrix Reloaded, X-men United, Seabiscuit, and some others I forget at the moment. Bad movies: Too many, among others, probably my least enjoyable was the Hulk
- 4th of July Barbeque at Cindy's in P-tine. 40's, brats, Pictionary. The only bad part was Billy Krotch blowing the Sox game in the 9th. Also worth mentioning was the recent Sushi night at Cindy's in Chicago. Much props for being a consistently excellent and generous host, Cindy.
- Thursday nights at Cubby Bear, $1 domestics. Turned into a Lambda thing after a while, so I stopped going. But it was good at the beginning of the summer, reminded me of the old crazy times with Andy and Will during freshman year of college. The best was them scaring the hell out of the racist white girl on the dance floor. Followed closely by the time me and Dave Chan whooped on them in Blitz arcade.
- Home run derby at DGS. A nice sunny Saturday afternoon, Anuj with a bucket of baseballs, the batting practice pitcher's screen, and just hitting away for a couple hours. More and more I cherish the opportunities to do these kinds of things and forget about everything else for a day.
Well, there's probably a few more that I missed, but just writing all those down puts me in a better mood. One more month left, time to step it up...
