A Life For Itself

Tag: blog

  • NaBloPoMo – Day 5

    Day 5

    Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

    You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, or car? (Or something else entirely — bike? Hot air balloon?)

    —

    This year, I visited Union Station for the first time since the last day I commuted home from DC in 2011.  This was indeed a nostalgia visit.  The station looked mostly the same way it did nearly 15 years ago.  Sbarro was still there right near the Metro exit nearest to the Northeast Corridor (NEC) tracks.  The great hall and the upstairs shops looked the same.  My favorite Indian restaurant was gone, so no mango lassi, unfortunately.

    In and out, morning and afternoon, that was my life for a year and a half.  I loved the train.  In the mornings, I’d get the 715 train out of Baltimore and get the last hour of sleep I didn’t get when I was home.  In the evenings, I’d watch out the window or read a book.  I read a lot of books those days.

    When MARC rolled out the Kawasaki bi-levels, I was in rail heaven.  The MARC III cars were one level, 5 seats across — 2 on one side, 3 on the other (anyone familiar with New Jersey Transit is familiar with this configuration).  Getting a 3 seater with a buffer seat between me and the other passenger was always the plan in the MARC IIIs.  But in the Kawasakis, I didn’t have to.  They were just 4 seats across, but you had your own seat, a little more room between you and the person next to you.

    And they ran so smoothly.

    I always tried to get out of work at the right time to run down Connecticut Avenue to get to Farragut North and get the right Red line train to Union Station to get me there at the right time to get that 5:25 express train home.  That was a very popular train and, if I remember correctly, one of the first to get the Kawasaki cars.

    The first stop was BWI Rail Station, about 35 minutes from Union Station.

    #

    You get on a plane and it taxis away from the terminal and rolls around to its starting point.  The pilots throttle up and the plane ambles, then gallops down the runway until it lifts off.  That’s what the trip was like.  The train leaves Union and ambles up the first interlocking and onto the corridor.  Past New York Avenue Metro station and out into Maryland, past the Orange line stations at Cheverly and Landover and just beyond New Carrollton, where the local trains stopped, you’d feel that throttling back.

    Then zchooooom … past Seabrook … zchoooooomm … past Bowie State …

    Now you’re totally relaxed on the upper level.  Small towns, woods, country roads on overpasses, all whirling by.  The train tilting gently into the few small curves, then leaning back up straight.

    One evening, when the conductor came to get my ticket, I asked how fast we were going on that stretch.  “One hundred twenty five miles per hour,” he told me.

    zchooooooom by Odenton and its long platform and jam packed parking lot, split by the tracks.  A few moments later, the train would throttle back to make BWI Rail Station.  A few minutes later, you were there; it was as close to flying as you could get without leaving the ground.

    #

    Late night Amtrak trains were the best.  I always got a seat and the trains were always quiet, so much so that there wasn’t even much of the usual clackety-clack sound in the Amfleet cars.  Those nights were great for sleeping, too (and Amtrak conductors would not let you stay on past your stop) or reading or even pulling down the food tray in front of me and writing.  I’d just have to turn on the overhead light because those cars were not as bright as the ones on their commuter cousins.  Either way, it was relaxing and peaceful.

    #

    I love driving.  I’m a roadgeek in addition to being a railfan.  I’ve driven tens of thousands of miles over the last 20+ years, but I haven’t been across the country driving, yet.  I haven’t been to Breezewood yet (I’ve driven I-78 through the Holland Tunnel a bunch of times.  Roadfans will get this, even if you don’t).  I haven’t driven the Pacific Coast Highway, yet.  There’s a lot of road I want to see.

    But now, for a cross country trip, I want to take the train.  Just give me a bedroom, a seat in the observation lounge, a notebook, and a computer, and i’m good.

  • NaBloPoMo – Day 4

    Day 4

    When you were a kid, did you want to have the same job or a different job than your parents when you grew up?

    —

    Vastly different.

    I remember my mother always doing something in an office.  That thing involved her having a desk and a typewriter.  It seemed like everybody at her job knew and liked her well.  But no part of what she did interested me.  She worked at a TV station and the only job I would have wanted there belonged to the weather man.  That, I liked.  Her job seemed boring.

    Her next job, she probably did roughly the same thing as she had a desk and a typewriter.  She worked at a radio station this time, however, and what the DJ’s were up to seemed far more interesting than what she was doing.

    In my earliest recollection, my dad ran a bar, which I didn’t really understand when I was a kid.  I knew people went to this bar and drank beer, but I never knew or cared to find out why or anything else.  I never much paid attention to the bar beyond that.  No interest.  (I think I’ve only been in bars a handful of times since he stopped working there; the longest amount of time I’ve spent in one, I was an extra in a movie).

    After that, my father worked in various roles managing plant and other operations at food processors.  Yeah, sounds exciting.  He liked it.  He became an executive before he retired.  I would have jumped from the roof of one of the buildings.

    My parents were highly concerned with my education.  But if they thought they might be pushing me towards some upper management position with a corner office overlooking the Harbor, golf outings at Hunt Valley, and three martini lunches at Haussner’s, that’s not the kid they were raising.  The kid they were raising wanted to read and learn things and question things and be creative.  And active.  Play baseball.  I would have been happier on a ball field or in a meteorology lab or writing poetry at some college campus full of old buildings and lakes.  Or writing maps.  In another life, I’m an urban and transportation planner.

    If anything, my parents eventually followed what nearly everybody else was trying to do those days — going and getting a government or corporate job.  I questioned that.  I wanted something different.  Just the way they raised me.

  • NaBloPoMo – Day 3

    Day 3

    What did you think was the coolest job in the world when you were younger? Do you still feel that way now?

    —

    Baseball player, by far.  And it had to be the coolest job in the world.

    I’d met politicians and executive types and those jobs weren’t as cool.  Those were the people that bought tickets to see baseball players play, therefore their jobs couldn’t be as cool.  No way, no how.

    I was sure that people like singers and actors had cool jobs.  Singers got to make music videos and go around to different places and sing.  Actors got to be in movies and on TV and on stage and that seemed pretty cool, too.  But baseball players got to travel around and be in movies and on TV, too.  So, much of the coolness factor of those jobs, baseball players got to have, too.  In addition to being able to play baseball everyday.

    Football and basketball players had cool jobs, too.  Just not as cool as baseball.  Football players had to run into each other and be hit (though they did allow catchers to be blasted by home-bound base runners back then).  Basketball players had to keep putting a ball in a hole over and over and over again.  Wasn’t really my cup of tea.

    Physicists.

    Doctors.

    Cartographers.

    Game show announcers.

    Train engineers.

    Pilots.

    None of these, nor anything else, could come close to baseball players in my mind.

    In what other job could you … well … play baseball?  Turn a double play?  Hit a bloop single with 2 outs?  Stretch a walk into a double?  Nothing.

    In baseball, you had the chance to play in front of lots of people and be loved and admired for doing something that kids did.  You could become a hero.  This was the game, still America’s past time back then.  And you could make a lot of money doing it.  Date a famous person if you could swing (no pun intended) one.

    That was the life.  That’s what I wanted to be.  Little League, High school, even in college, after the dream had realistically gone, part of me still nursed it.

    Until I stepped on stage.

    Until I heard words I’d written spoken by actors.

    Theatre.

    Telling stories.

    Giving life to to characters.

    That was the best job in the world.

    The preparation.  All the reading.  All the choices.

    The rehearsal.  The risk taking.  The vulnerability.

    The performance.  The excitement.  The living.

    Baseball was great.  Putting on the uniform and representing is a sacred thing.

    But in theatre, you can put on any uniform.  Any costume.  Any life.

    All of the dramatic storytelling mediums.

    I still love baseball.  I watch a ton of games.  The World Series, even if it didn’t go the way I’d hoped, was thrilling.  And I know deep down that there are fewer dreams higher than competing in the grandest game, at the highest level, on the biggest stage.

    But making theatre and telling stories, you can live any life, any dream.

  • NaBloPoMo – Day 2

    Day 2

    Back to the office.  I should have read that book on how to balance you writer life with having a day job.  While I’m reading slides about the Salesforce Winter 16 release and filling out a spreadsheet (for something I can’t mention, even though nobody I work with reads this site), I’m constantly thinking about getting back into my Chromebook and writing again.

    Back in the day at one of my old jobs, I used to have to cover the front desk for the receptionists when they took their lunch.  When I was asked to do this, I groaned for the first 15 seconds until I realized that I could use that time to write.  I had a notebook and pens with me that day and from that day until the day I left there, that’s what I did.  Receptionist go to lunch, I sit up there and write.  That was sweet.

    At this job, they have receptionist coverage and I’d probably have to do my usual work up at the front, so there’s zero chance I’d ever even consider asking to go up there.  I just have to  find the time I find now to crack open my notebook or Chromebook when I’m on lunch myself.

    Or just wait until I get off like today.  Run home or to the library as quickly as I can and work there.

    This is the life.

    #

    Baseball is mercifully over, now.  This was excruciating if you were rooting for the Mets in the least.  How many blown leads?  How many chances to put these games away that didn’t pan out?  When you could have legit won but made so many mistakes that you played yourself out of it, that’s the kind of thing that stays with you.  And the fans.

    The Mets will open 2016 with two games in Kansas City.  Here’s to Noah Syndergaard starting one of those.  High and tight.

  • NaBloPoMo – Day 1

    So just before midnight Saturday night, I plug in my trusted Dell laptop, the one with Scrivener, to make my final preparations for all of the writing I’m going to do this month and … it won’t charge.

    I try it again.  Nothing.  The laptop is at 10%.  I try plugging it into a different power surge.  Nope.  I try my little travel power surge.  It keeps the computer going at first, but won’t charge the battery at all.  I try my other little travel surge.  Now nothing.  The light is on, but now the computer won’t charge, won’t allow at least run on AC power alone.

    It’s 10 PM.  I shouldn’t have procrastinated, but I did and now I can’t set up my projects; soon I won’t have access to any of the notes or outlines I’ve done.  In previous years, I might have taken that as a sign that my arms weren’t long enough for my reach.

    Instead, I just calmed down, took out my little go-to guy, my Chromebook and at midnight, opened up my writing app and got busy.  I got a thousand or so words done Saturday night.

    Sunday was slower.  By 10, I was up watching the Chiefs beat up on the poor Lions and by the time that was over, it was time for the Ravens (who won, although some said after the game that the Chargers were the best 2-6 team ever, even though the Ravens had just gone to 2-6 by beating them).  So the writing was slower and it took many more hours to get done, but done it got.  I’m just, admittedly, posting this stuff after the fact.  (How this ties into my main laptop being unavailable is a long story, but suffice it to say, my preference was to not upset my current system and so I’m posting these late, even if I’ve written them on time.  Scout’s honor.)

    Part of the reason Sunday was slow was the desk issue (not having one).  I really need to remedy that soon.  And I need to sacrifice some football after the Ravens are done playing.  I’m glad their bye week is next week.  I can allow myself to ignore football for a good portion of the day to keep the writing going.

     

  • Five Things – 29 October 2015

    1.

    November Writing: Finally came to the idea of writing essays based on questions.  It’s probably a fallback option, but I wasn’t really feeling writing a larger work.  The whole project feels much less daunting.  It’s still an average of 1600 or so words every day, 90 minutes or so every day at my pace, for 30 days, but none of the words ever have to be related to the ones before.  Or the ones after.  No narrative arc.  No through-line.  Just a new writing adventure each day.  Feels liberating, even as I still must show up every day to make it work.

    2.

    I said a couple of weeks ago that I might document the whole process.  I am.  One of my immediate writing goals and reasons for taking part in this is to build my daily writing practice back up.  To that end, in addition to the above work I’m going to complete, I’m committing to 30 writing blog entries during November.

    I was finally completing my signup for National Nonfiction Writing Month and saw that one of the other participants was also doing both the NaNoFiWriMo and a blogging challenge.  I thought, hey, I can do that, too.  I checked it out and with the only requirement being to post something to your blog everyday (no word counts), I figured I could do it.  Besides, the whole point is to build up a habit.  It’s more work, so instead of just 90 minutes per day around my job, I’ll be writing 2 1/2 hours.

    3.

    And on top of all of this writing, I’m participating in a writing bootcamp next month.  The bootcamp is several hours of one day, so that’s going to be a heavy writing day.  But given my experiences at the last one I went to, this one should be well worth it.

    4.

    Things were looking much better for the Mets last week.  A 2-0 series isn’t necessarily over, but it’s going to be a challenge getting back.  Especially since they have to beat the Royals at least once in Kansas City to win the whole thing.  Too bad I can’t get tickets.  I know where I’d want to go as soon as I got in town.

    5.

    Just enjoying the ride with the Ravens.  Joe Flacco said this week that Baltimore is “entitled to good football.”  I won’t argue with that and if they turn things around, it’s all good.  And if they don’t, that’s all good, too.  If we can use the franchise track record as a guide, I can expect them to be back at the top soon.  Ravens fans have had good football the majority of the last 20 years, so this being a down season is nothing.  Besides, things could be worse — we could all have been fans of the Landover team over that same time period.

  • Five Things – 23 October 2015

    1.

    The Mets are going to the World Series and they celebrated with a massive bottle of champagne.

    Last time, they created a beer slip-n-slide.


    If they win the championship, will someone perhaps drive in a truck with a pool full of booze in it that the players can just bathe in it?

    Still, though, the whole thing got lit pretty quickly last night without anything so ridiculous.  During an interview with Tyler Clippard, the holder of the massive champagne bottle insisted on pouring some into Clippard’s mouth, as well as Daniel Murphy’s mouth, as he stood slightly off camera.  I guess not wanting to mar the celebratory atmosphere on camera, they both drank.  And just before the camera cut, Murphy spit his out.  They need to get these interviews done more quickly during these celebrations or something.

    I do wish they’d had this massive bottle that time Chris Bosh doused himself with champagne when the Heat won.  You remember that.

    2.

    I love the email conversation my sister and I are engaged in.  Part of me wishes we could move the discussion into handwritten letters, but people here can’t even read my handwriting (In case you’re one of my old teachers from my K-12 years, the legibility issue with my handwriting apparently has not improved).

    3.

    Black Poetry Day occurred since the last time I did a five things.

    I haven’t written a poem in a good while, a couple of months or so.  I haven’t had a regular poetry writing practice in a much longer time.  I sometimes feel like poetry is a vestige of my youth, something I can look back on and find pride in the successes and lessons in the many failures.  It’s a craft I really did my best to learn and enjoyed what one could do with a poem, but still something that was “way back when.”

    And then I’ll sit down do one of the writing prompts from the Poetic Asides blog (sometimes I might even submit) and I’ll remember what it felt like when I first began trying.  No pressure, no critique, just me and thoughts and a little bit of craft.

    Sometimes I want to learn more about prose poems to try and split the difference.

    That’s a great read linked above about the view of black poetry in professional poetry circles.  Definitely sentiments I’ve heard during the years.  Nothing new, unfortunately.

    4.

    This will have taken a little over 12 hours to finish from the time I started it.  I really need to find a better place to write for a few minutes during the day on weekdays.

    5.

    My thoughts and prayers are with her.  As someone told me online earlier, there’s no worse feeling than burying a child.

  • Five Things – 14 October 2015

    1.

    October.

    As I was on my way to the library, Edwin Encarnacion hit a 443-foot shot to tie the Rangers-Blue Jays game 5 in the bottom of the 6th.  By the time I got in and unpacked and plugged in, the Rangers had taken the lead again.  The online box score says Rougned Odor stole home to put them back up.  If they hold on and win this game, Cole Hamels might end up becoming a Texas hero as his fellow Phillies cast away, Chase Utley, creates one of the most controversial plays in recent memory and turns himself into public enemy #1 in Queens.

    October.

    The other day while I was at work, I listened online while the Royals strung together a series of hits and runs to come back from 4 down to go up 1, then get 2 more insurance runs in the 9th and force a game 5.

    October.

    The Cubs beat the Pirates in the Wild Card game to get the right to play the Cardinals, the best team in baseball this year.  They run into this year’s playoff buzzsaw, Jake Arrieta, who pitched out of his mind all during the regular season and now in the playoffs.  Toss in a few home runs and the Cubs have a chance to end the curse.

    I wish the O’s were in it, taking another run at the Royals, but the Mets are still going, facing down Zack Greinke tomorrow.  At least the Dodgers will have to get through Jacob deGrom to make it to Saturday.  It’s still great baseball.  Definitely takes the edge off what’s been a disaster of a football season so far (see: Ravens 1-4; Ravens IR list).

    (Blue Jays tied the game on a bases loaded bloop single and then Jose Bautista hit a 3 run home run to put them ahead 3.  He also flipped his bat like no one ever before and maybe since.  October.)

    2.

    It stormed here last night.  It was partly sunny when I walked in to check on my computer (more on that later) but 20 minutes later, it had already rained and left puddles.  Lots of lightning with these storms; to the south, cloud to cloud and ground.  If it’s raining hard enough when I’m at work, I go stand outside of the front door and take video with my phone.  The street there is a broken, pitted mix of brick and asphalt, partly resembling a series of horizontal waves, and in some places, the water runs and in others, it pools.  You could slip and slide down one side, splish and splash down the other.

    I keep track of this sort of thing in my journal, as well as Nor’easters during the fall and winter months, blizzards, regular snowstorms, hurricanes, all of it.

    3.

    I wanted to be a meteorologist when I was younger.  Atmospheric phenomena both thrilled and scared me.  Like that time we had thundersnow.

    I was out with my mother and trying to rush her back home, as I’d heard that the oncoming snowstorm might produce such an event.  Thunder with snow?  I’d faithfully watched the morning and 11 PM weather reports faithfully for years (I had to sneak to watch the latter) and I didn’t recall any meteorologists ever mentioning even the possibility of something like that.  It sounded fantastical, like time travel and magic and faster-than-light travel, all the imaginative things in all those children’s novels at school that I refused to read.  My mind raced.  I wanted to believe it was all bullshit, but still, what if it could thunder during a snowstorm?  What couldn’t the weather do?

    (Years later, the question would be answered by tornadoes wiping out entire towns, Hurricane Katrina nearly taking New Orleans off the map, and Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy flooding what seemed like the entire Jersey Shore.)

    We were just outside the house when the storm blew in.  One moment, nothing, the next, a wall of snow and wind pushing us back down the street.  After we fought our way inside, I decided I wanted to see.  I was hoping for enough snow for school to be closed the next day.  The window in my room was small, but there was a huge window in the kitchen.  I went downstairs and stood right by it.

    The snow was coming down so fast, I just knew school would be closed the next day.  The school system had no choice, I thought.  It would take a lot for them to make the decision, but this one was looking bad.  And the best part?  No thunder, just snow.  I knew they were bullshitting on TV.  There wasn’t any such thing as thunder and snow in the same storm.  And as I was just about to celebrate my rightness and the desires of children all over the city over the powers that be …

    -BAM-

    The whole kitchen lit up.

    No.

    I stood there frozen.

    All I could think of was how wrong this was.  Later in life, I’d learn the term for how I was feeling: cognitive dissonance.  All of my watching of the skies and of the news and waiting for severe storm watches, had taught me that lightning and thunder were summertime affairs and here we were in the middle of a snowstorm, and …

    -BAM-

    The kitchen lit up again.

    As soon as I could move my feet, I backed away, far away from the window, past the table in the middle of the floor.  I crept away from the kitchen entirely, my mind jumping back to all the stories and explanations I’d been told growing up, of God sending things like lightning and unexpected weather events like this to punish people.

    On one hand, I didn’t think God would be punishing me for damn near dancing for celebrating a day out of school; surely, God had to have more on the agenda than that.  On the other hand, I didn’t want to take any chances, so I sprinted back upstairs to my room and put out my clothes for school the next day.  Surely, this had to be enough penance.

    The weather people were right.  As the terror subsided, I thought about how cool it was that you could even forecast whether a snowstorm would make lightning.  Even though this storm had scared the hell out of me, it made me want that kind of power more and more.

    4.

    I love question lists;  I’ve pretty much always answered them when sent in email.  I was looking up some things I might want to talk about in these 5 things posts, and came across this list, answered by Ashley Ford.

    1. The meaning behind my URL

    It’s my name.

    2. A picture of me

    Not now, maybe later.

    3. Tattoos I have

    None.  Not one.

    4. Last time I cried and why

    When my father passed away.  It was because my father had passed away.

    5. Piercings I have

    None.  Not one.

    6. Favorite Band

    Incognito.

    7. Biggest turn off(s)

    Misused apostrophe’s, spoken word, crazy sports fans.

    8. Top 5 (gelato flavors)

    Strawberry, mango, Granny Smith apple, mango, and strawberry.

    9. Tattoos I want

    None, not one.

    10. Biggest turn on(s)

    Someone who knows when I want to be bothered and when I want to be left alone.

    11. Age

    38

    12. Ideas of a perfect date

    A Ravens night game in September before it gets too cold.

    13. Life goal(s)

    Write. Make theatre.  Marry and love this woman.  Spend as much time as I can with my family.  Root for these teams.

    14. Piercings I want

    No piercings.  Ever

    15. Relationship status

    See number 13.

    16. Favorite movie

    “Contact.”  The interplay of skepticism and spirituality has been a theme throughout my life.

    17. A fact about my life

    I’m afraid of lightning.

    18. Phobia

    Lightning.

    19. Middle name

    Alexander

    20. Anything you want to ask

    Why do I like doing these?

    (Blue Jays won.  Royals won after I finished writing this.  October.)

    5.

    Another huge turnoff: business jargon.  I’ll have to talk about this at length in the future.

  • Five Things

    One of the highlights of my week is to read folks’ Five Things blog posts.  The ones I read a nice diversion from the mishmash of the usual political BS, upcoming must-have gadgets, sports happenings (the Lions got screwed the other night), and entertainment brouhaha (trust me, making theatre and other entertainment is much more fun than reading about the entertainment that others make) that I read daily.  They remind me that there are some people still living as humans having actual experiences, and just not head-to-toe sports stat machines, OS-or-hardware-manufacturer-branded-cyborgs, or political talking point dispensers.

    So, after some gentle prodding from people who won’t let me anymore tell them that I have nothing to say or that I wrote everything I might say into my paper notebook, I’m at least going to try to write Five Things every week, to be posted on Wednesdays or Thursdays.  My first one will be on a Tuesday because today is Tuesday and I have to write and publish this today or else.

    1.

    I decided to go to the library to write.  Not only are there too many distractions at home, but I don’t have a desk.

    I need a desk.  Writing at a desk makes the writing feel more real to me.  I read once that sitting on the bed or the sofa can hinder the writing process because when you’re on the bed, your body gets the signal that it’s time to go to sleep and on the sofa, your body is ready to sit and relax, watch TV, read (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not writing).  However, if you’ve ever been to school or an office job at all, sitting at a desk tells your brain that you’re ready to get work, since that’s what it’s been trained to do.

    Given the number of words in this blog and the fact of my often trying to write sitting on the sofa before something invariably comes on TV, I’d imagine there’s some truth to this.

    So I need a desk.  Other than my one at work.  I’m always being sought out there.  Not conducive for writing.  Unfortunately, none of my hiding spaces at work have desks or even room for a desk.

    I also want to stop writing on my laptop and get a PC again.  Even if it’s a Chromebox.  Something with a mechanical keyboard.  Maybe I’ll even get a mouse with a cable attached, again.  Something not facing the TV.  Something I won’t feel tempted to pick up and go sit near the TV with.

    2.

    This time last year, the O’s had won the AL East and it was the best time in my adult life to be a fan.  Now, we have Chris Davis signing going-away bats for his teammates and Buck hugging him, seeming like a father about to see his son head out into the world.  All discussion is about who might be staying, who might be going, and how the team will look vastly different next year.  Even after the Royals gutted the O’s in the ALCS last year, there was still hope and excitement.  I knew they wouldn’t go back to being the same sad O’s we’d become accustomed to.  AJ and Manny and Crush would still be here, even if they let Nelson Cruz and Andrew Miller walk.

    This time around, I’m not so sure.

    3.

    Now they’re talking about magnetic trains and futuristic pods to get around back home.  I guess if they don’t put any of the pods in the hood, folks can just go back to riding horses.  Might be faster than the bus or the current light rail.

    They should have just built the new light rail.

    When the maglev is finally done, you’ll be able to get to DC in 8 minutes.  Once you get back, you’ll probably have to take a bus to get to your final destination and that bus will take an hour to get you there, but I guess that’s progress there.  Maybe they should find a way to magnetically levitate a bus or everybody’s cars if they live in the county.  The state might be willing to pay for that.

    4.

    Coach Jim Harbaugh and his Michigan Wolverines took a picture in front of a local Cracker Barrel and thanked them for the great food and service.

    While I do enjoy a trip to the Cracker Barrel for a hamburger steak, I really hope they didn’t travel 700+ miles to eat only at a chain they can get probably get anywhere, when they were literally minutes from G&M Restaurant and some of the best seafood in Maryland.  Maybe they had to stretch their per-diem money.  You can get a couple of hamburger steak dinners for the price of a crab cake platter.  Not that I suggest this.

    5.

    The Lions got hosed during Monday Night Football.  Sure, had they been given another play, they might have fumbled the ball again.  This is the Lions.  But at least get the call right, especially if you’re standing right there.  Saying that you didn’t make the call because the batting of the ball wasn’t overt, is a cop out.

    You know what else might not be overt?  Doctoring a baseball.

    “Sure, he threw a spitball, but we’re not going to eject him because he wasn’t overt.” Sounds ridiculous in that situation, too.  Just call the game as it is.  The Seahawks have been to two straight Super Bowls and won one.  They don’t need the help.

    Bonus:

    Nearly 90 minutes of writing can go by so quickly when you’re really in it.  My reward for this: relaxing with a nice cup of Kefir while watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

    What I’m reading: “Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy” by Dinty W. Moore

    What I’m listening to: WFAN. Bound to be lots of angry Yankees fans tomorrow.