Friday Update

Friday was a workday so not a lot of time to do much other than work even, if it was from home. It is kind of amusing though as Ann and I both work from home on Friday and along with The Son's computer, we have five computers running on our wireless home system. Which brings me to a complaint about our work remote access. If we connect via broadband, which we do, we get disconnected after being on for just an hour and have to reconnect. Its truly annoying. Not to mention you're always in the middle of doing something that you haven't saved for a while and then it all disappears into the ether world. So far requests to adjust things have gone unresolved. I'm so glad we've outsourced our whole computer operation.

I was suppose to go out rowing yesterday evening. The forecast was for clear, but windy. I went down to the end of our block where I can see the Occoquan. It looked pretty choppy so I called my partner and cancelled. I don't think she was too pleased. Of course ten minutes after I called, the wind all but disappeared. Figures. We'll try again next week. We're suppose to get a big nor'easter on Sunday so rowing then is out. This is turning out to be a tough spring to row.

I used to be a big baseball fan growing up in NJ. I loved to play the game as a little leaguer, (Yea Newfoundland Cardinals!). I used to love the NY Yankees in their heyday. I can still name all the starters. I owned a Mickey Mantle signature glove (that I still have) and batted using a Yogi Berra model. I think half the team use to use it. I all but cried when I broke it. Back in those days you just put a few small nails in the handle where it was broken, taped it back up and you were good to go. Sort of. It was never quite the same. I adopted the Mets when they came on the scene and suffered through many a losing season till they won the World Series in 1969. After moving from NJ when I was 14 though it was harder and harder to sustain my love for the Mets, the world series not withstanding. When I moved to Virginia as an adult, Washington no longer had a team and frankly without a team I wasn't really interested in following baseball anymore. I still played - softball for a work league. I know there was the Orioles, but lets be honest they're the BALTIMORE Orioles. Peter Angelos position to the contrary, they're not Washington's team. So it was kind of exciting when the Expos moved from Montreal to Washington and became the Nationals. Sure they had no real owner other than MLB who refused to let them have any payroll whatsoever. So we ended up with castoffs that nobody wanted. To every one's surprise they've been pretty competitive. Except that is, for this year. They finally got real owners, a new stadium is being built (despite the gross ineptitude of both MLB (greed is our name) and the DC government (I think they all were schooled at the Marion Barry School for Idiots) ). The new owners have laid out this grand plan of building up the farm system and being ready for next year when the new stadium will open. All well and good, but lord could they have not spent a little money on players this year? They've discarded anyone of any value save one or two players and it shows. They've lost all but two games this year and usually by large margins. Its going to be a long summer for the Nationals. I fear the new owners risk alienating the fans to the extent that it will hurt them in the future. You just can't write off a whole season.