Content subject to blackout

OK, so last night I came downstairs to watch the Cubs/Brewers game on ESPN.  It was the Wednesday Night Baseball game.  I had been looking forward to it all day, and I had TiVo’ed the game so I could watch it from the beginning after I put the kids in bed.

I came downstairs, ready to watch my boys, and the game was blacked out.  What?  The games from Wrigley Field are often blacked out, but they are in Milwaukee right now.  So what’s up with that?  We are not a Chicago market.  We don’t get any local Chicago programming except WGN.  And everybody with Cable TV gets WGN.  Does that mean nobody in the entire country can watch Cubs games on ESPN?

Our Fox Sports affiliate is Kansas City for crying out loud.  At least I think it’s Kansas City.  But that’s neither here nor there.  The question remains, why can’t I watch the Cubs? 

In a fit of rage I logged onto MLB-dot-com to investigate the possibilities of MLB game day.  I was reading all the information before pulling out my credit card and pulling the trigger.  I noticed a teeny tiny window that said, “Enter your zip code here for black out information”.  So I did.  And I got this message:

U.S. ZIP code “XXXXX” is located within the home television territory of the following Club(s), and MLB.TV is subject to blackout for all regular season live games for these Club(s):

Minnesota Twins

Chicago White Sox

St. Louis Cardinals

Kansas City Royals

Chicago Cubs

Milwaukee Brewers

The fine print went on to tell me that the blackout restrictions are in effect regardless of whether the club is at home or away. 

Now, I ask you, how is that possible?  How can I possibly be in the home television territory for all six of these teams?  And perhaps the bigger question is anybody anywhere in the US able to watch a live game on MLB TV?  This really sucks.

I just do not understand the logic behind the blackout restrictions.  I am sure they have the best of intentions, but this is just ridiculous.

 

Another reason why I don’t like Carlos Zambrano

Idiot!  Dumbass stupid Carlos Zambrano.  He pitched a great game last night.  But then, in the top of the (I believe) sixth inning he tried to bunt.  He popped it up for the out.  So what does he do?  He breaks his bat over his knee.  Over his knee.  Breaks the bat in half.  Over.  His.  Knee.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  If you are going to get frustrated and lose your temper go into the dugout and throw your batting helmet.  Or take your bat to the water cooler.  Don’t do something that could hurt you.   Of course, maybe he didn’t hurt himself.  But if he has a deep tissue bruise, it won’t show up for a couple days.  Just in time for his next start.

This kind of thing is why I don’t like Big Z much.  He loses his temper and does stupid stuff.  And I’ll tell you; if he ends up missing a start because of a big bone bruise on his thigh I will personally go to Chicago and kick his ass.  I could totally do it too.

Odds and Ends

I am shamelessly stealing this idea from my brother, who does something similar on his blog.

Last week he wrote about finding an earwig in a peach he was getting ready to eat.  I had a Traumatic Experience with an earwig when I was younger.  And that is all I am prepared to say on that subject.  Except that after reading my brother’s tale of woe I may never be able to buy peaches again.

***

Today is Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso’s birthday.  He is 27 years old now.  At the ripe old age of 27 he has

• 503 career F1 points
• 49 podiums
• 19 wins
• 17 pole positions

and

• 2 World Championships

Not bad, not bad at all.  Happy Birthday Alonso.  Come on over, I made cake. 

***

The Cubs are in the middle of a four-game set against the Brewers in Milwaukee.  They won last night.  One down three to go.  I am just hoping for the split.  The good news is we faced C.C. Sabathia last night, and he is one of their best pitchers.  So now we don’t have to worry about him anymore this series.  I can’t decide if I should watch tonight or not.  I have set my TiVo, but I don’t know if I have the nerve. 

***

I am sitting on the porch right now watching it rain and listening to the thunder.  I will have to go in soon so my computer doesn’t get wet.

Shopping Bags

The dangers of plastic bags.  Thanks to my sister for sending this to me.  It makes you think.

I have a ton of those reusable totes you can buy at the grocery store.  I am generally very good about remembering them when I am going on a big shop.  Like for example when I am doing the grocery shopping for the week.

I am not so good at remembering to grab a bag when I am just running into the store for one or two things.  I really need to get a little tote that will fold up small and fit in my purse.  I know such things exits.  I have seen them online, and recently I have seen them in the You’re in Luck, It’s a Buck section at Target. 

I think I will have to pick one up the next time I’m there because I really must remember to use them all the time.  It’s a small thing but it’s something.  If everybody did one or two small things, maybe it would add up to something big.

RAGBRAI

RAGBRAI has arrived! RAGBRAI is also knows as the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.  10,000 people are in Ames tonight as it passes through town.  That’s right, I said: 

 

Ten.

Thousand. 

People.

            

Wow.  That’s a big crowd. 

So anyway, our friends Team G are hosting a RAGBRAI team called Team Veneto.  I am not entirely sure how they got hooked up with these guys, but the short answer is they are friends of a friend who owns a house in Venice.  That must be such a hardship. 

Hosting usually involves letting people use your shower and your washing machine, and either letting them sleep on your floor or pitch tents in your yard.    It also usually involves feeding them. 

Team G saw this as a good excuse to have a party.  We were invited because we were in Rome with them and we can speak some Italian.  There was a lot of smiling and nodding.  A lot of buena sera and piacere and not much else.  And I am faced with the cold hard realization that I really cannot speak Italian very well at all.  It’s very sad.  But on the other hand it was kind of nice to once again be surrounded by people speaking a language that is both vaguely familiar and completely incomprehensible.  I miss Rome.

I have had such a great time today watching the cyclists tooling around town.  It almost makes me wish I could do RAGBRAI someday.  Except of course for the small fact that I do not like bike riding.  Maybe I could learn to like it….nah.

Day Camp

The kids are at day camp all week this week.  I just dropped them off and now I have the house all to myself.

I love day camp.

The German Grand Prix Report

I am not writing a German Grand Prix report because I am too angry.  Lewis Hamilton won.  Yippee skippy.  His teammate Heikki Kovaleinen who had been running ahead of him in the closing laps conveniently let Hamilton by.  So I am pissed because clearly Heikki was told to let Hamilton pass.  This is called team orders.

There are not supposed to be team orders in Formula 1.  It is against the rules, but everybody does it anyway.  Ferrari and Michael Schumacher were notorious for it.  In fact, it is because of Ferrari and Shumi’s antics that team orders were banned in the first place.

I don’t have a problem with team orders in theory.  Everybody does it and it is pretty damn hard to win a championship without resorting to them from time to time.  However, Ron Dennis and McLaren have always professed publicly that they don’t use team orders.  That they let their drivers race and may the best man win.  Except of course these days the best man is always Lewis Hamilton.  If that means Heikki has to move over so that can happen, then so be it.

So I am not pissed off about Heikki letting Hamilton pass.  I am pissed because McLaren are pretending that isn’t what happened.  I would like to think they will get busted for this but they won’t.  The FIA has never once enforced the team orders ban since it was instated, I don’t imagine they will start now.

Is this heaven? No, it’s Michigan

It is raining today.  This will put a serious crimp in our tubing plans.

The good news is we were out for a long time yesterday.  All the kids took a turn or two and then it was time for the grown-ups. 

First we had to get all the kids back into the boat.  After they were done tubing they had just been rolling off Big Mable and then swimming to the raft our neighbors have anchored in the lake.  We had one adult posted on the raft, one on Big Mable, one driving and one spotting.  The children all started out on the boat and then abandoned ship after their turns.

After all the children were on the raft, it was time for the grown-ups to go tubing.

• First step:  convince the Princess to get back on the boat and spot so Uncle A and I could hit Big Mable.  She was a reluctant spotter, and is technically too young to do it, but the swamp cop wasn’t on the lake yesterday.
• Second step:  Uncle A and I climbed onto the raft
• Third step:  punch it.

Woo hoo!  We were riding couch style so wiping out is a pretty remote possibility and we just flew around the lake.  The princess told us when we were finished that we had been going 30 miles an hour.  That probably doesn’t set any tubing records, but this is a pretty small lake and you can’t get going much faster than that.

And then the time had come for Auntie S and I to go out chariot style.  Oh yeah. 

• Step one:  herd all the children off the raft and back onto the boat while Auntie S rearranged the towrope.  Uncle A took over spotting duties and dad was still driving.  And dad was a man with a mission.
• Step two:  try not to swamp Big Mable while the boat is accelerating.
• Step three:  go flying off the tube while dad drives like a crazy person
• Step four:  repeat

By the end of our two laps around we had wiped out about four times and we were laughing so hard we could barely get back onto the tube when they came around for us.  I am still sneezing lake water.

I also learned that I need to get a one-piece suit for tubing purposes.  I had a number of wardrobe malfunctions yesterday and almost lost the bottoms to my suit a couple of times.  That would have been embarrassing.

After all that tubing and falling and tubing and falling my arms and neck are killing me so it is probably a good thing that I can’t do it again today.

Ahh, Michigan

Ahh, Michigan.  Tubing today.

Actually we have been tubing every day.  My sister and her boys arrived on Monday night, and our days have fallen into a good routine.  We get up in the morning, have breakfast, and then go swimming.  We come up for lunch and then put in a movie for the kids.

After the movie we go back down to the beach and go tubing.  We fire up S&P’s bass boat, hook up Big Mable and hit it.  Big Mable is awesome.  It is like a giant chaise lounge for tubing.  You sit up really high, and you don’t get splashed much, which is nice.

The only downside is two kids cannot seem to go at the same time because they don’t weigh enough and the tube swamps.  So a grown up always has to go with a kid.  Oh, darn.  My sister and I both love tubing so it is such a hardship to have to go out with the kids.

Today we worked out a new system.  Everybody rides in the boat.  Then when it’s time to switch people on the tube we just pull it in and the riders climb on and off from the boat. 

The kids are getting braver so my dad is driving the boat faster and faster.  He is also doing these crazy serpentine patterns in the water so the tube goes ka-chung ka-chug ka-chung as we cross and re-cross the wakes.  Both the C-man and his cousin O almost wiped out, but managed to hang on. 

Then, after the kids were all done, we turned the tube around so my sister and I could ride chariot style.  This involves kneeling up on the tube and hanging on to the handles on the backrest.  This is about the most fun you can have in a swimsuit.  Goggles are recommended.

So we were flying around the lake having a grand old time, while our own father was doing everything he could to knock us off.  And then he succeeded.  My sister went flying off into the deep.  Princess O was spotting and apparently she did a perfect job of telling grandpa that we had lost Auntie S and he needed to turn around.

Unfortunately when Auntie S wiped out she must have knocked the air valve on Big Mable and she deflated.  Thus endeth the tubing for today.  We also need a new towrope because the one we were using got fouled on the boat propeller.  Oops.  Oh, well.  It was the last turn of the day anyway so it couldn’t have happened at a better time. 

After tubing dinner then fishing then bed.

Tomorrow more of the same.  Plus my brother arrives and the Princess gets to go horseback riding with my Aunt.  She is counting the minutes.

Off to Michigan (Yippee)

We are leaving for Michigan the day after tomorrow.  By “we” I mean the children and I.  This is our annual pilgrimage to Huzzy Lake to spend a week and a bit with my parents and my sister and her three boys.  We will do as little as possible.  I cannot wait.

Even packing to go to Michigan is a pleasure.  I don’t have to worry about fitting everything into the bags to get it on the plane because we are driving, and I don’t have to bring nice clothes.  There is no reason to look skinny and cute because I won’t see anybody I am not related to anyway.

Actually, I don’t know why I bother packing any clothes for myself at all.  I seem to end up wearing the same pair of shorts the entire time.  It’s not as disgusting as it sounds.  We change out of or jammies at about 10am, and have lunch at noon.  Then we put our bathing suits on and leave them on until approximately dinnertime.  So I don’t really have the clothes on for very long. 

I am only packing my most comfy, fattest shorts, and my favorite big t-shirts.  Comfort is the only watchword.  Stacy and Clinton would be appalled. 

S and P got a new bass boat that they keep in MI and S asked if I would be comfortable driving it.  I said I didn’t know, because I had never driven a boat before, but I would give it the old college try.  She is bringing the tube, the Big Mabel so the kids can go tubing behind the boat, and we probably can too.  She told me she found this tube online, and that it had great reviews, and then she found out it was called Big Mabel, and she just had to have it.  I agreed 100%.  Our grandmother’s name was Mabel so you can see why we needed this particular tube.

The C-Man is especially excited about the trip because he will be reunited with his best friend B for a sleepover on our way there.  B’s grandmother has a house in Sawyer, MI, at Exit 12.  We are at Exit 60.  How handy.

So the plan is to drop the C-man off with S and B.  We shall meet at Redamaks for a late lunch.  Mmm, the best hamburgers ever.  Then they will come up on Saturday to spend the day hanging out on the beach and tubing.  I think we will try for a very early start on Friday morning since we can’t get a head start on Thursday night.  I guess we could, but I am too cheap to spend the money.  I will just pack the car tomorrow night and make them get up early.  I wonder how early I can get them going.  Maybe I will promise them breakfast at burger king if we get out of here early enough.  I am shameless.