Thom Brennaman gets down wit it; another bike stolen

I have moved into my new apartment, and with internet set up, I'm watching the Astros-Cubs game with unbelievable excitement and anticipation. The game's being shown on Fox in the states, but I'm able to get it with mlb.tv, a service provided by MLB in association with ESPN, live and streamed through the internet.

I guess there's some disagreement about advertising, b/c I haven't seen any commercials yet. What I'm seeing instead is the broadcast booth feed. I don't really know who's calling the shots, but the entire commercial break consisted of zoom-ins on hot girls in the stands. I'm not joking - it was pretty unprofessional, but funny nonetheless. sometimes they'd zoom back and forth, rapidly, like 12 year olds playing with mom's digital camcorder. Then, the booth is preparing the tape on Clemens for the next half inning, and you hear Thom Brennaman saying "Alright that's good. Stop it right there." But he keeps talking. "Yeah right there. Alright. A'it. Aaaa-iiit!!!" Like he's pretending to be black or something. Really weird stuff....

My life was changed yesterday, but it didn't last very long. Orla (my host for the first month I was here) gave me one of her old bikes that she didn't need anymore. It was brown and the paint was peeling, but it was a bike. I was thrilled, and after a little bit of oil, more air in the tires, and some tightening of the screws, I was off and riding. With the wind whipping through my mane, I rode all the way to El Corte Ingles, an hour's walk and definitely longer on the bus than the 10 minute bike ride. I felt liberated; I was suddenly able to go anywhere, do anything. What a day.

Then, I locked my bike up outside with a chain. When I woke up this morning, it was gone. Fourth bike stolen in the last 5 years. I have yet to have a bike longer than 2 months before it gets stolen. I felt like a part of me has been taken. And yet, the fault is almost all mine. I'm pretty sure I looped the lock over the top of the seat, allowing the thief to simply lift the lock up over the seat and hit paydirt. I feel like such an idiot...

Eliminate place-kicking; the Spanish way of doing business

I remembered why I stopped going to espn.com when doing research for this entry. First, it takes me about 15 clicks of the back button of the browser before I find what I'm looking for b/c I keep getting distracted by interesting stories. Second, though, is because it really is the Yankees-Red Sox network. That's all they wanna talk about - who's gonna win the AL MVP - Big Papi or A-Rod (including a breakdown on who has the cooler nickname), who's gonna win the AL East race, blah blah blah. I know they cover those two teams b/c "that's where the fans/interest is" but I think it's self-fulfilling. The more they cover Yankees-Red Sox, the more those fans'll watch and the less I will. Hell, I didn't even know there was a tie in the AL East race...*

Alan Ashby is hoping to become the next full-time play-by-play guy for the Astros when Milo Hamilton semi-retires next year. I like Alan (from extensive personal interactions) but the guy makes a must-win pennant-race thriller sound like a Double-A Spring Training game. He's not terrible as the former-player-turned-color-guy, except in the innings after he does play-by-play (4th and 7th) when he still thinks he's 'the man' and tries to interrupt Milo for some fun fact that is largely unneccessary. [ed. note: I used 7 different hyphenated phrases in this paragraph] He's smart, which is a rare thing for a former player turned broadcaster, but he ends every sentence with a raised intonation. It just sounds lame - kinda like I did when I tried to call the Dartmouth baseball games last spring. But at least no one paid me. Or listened to it.

I had another extended interaction with the Spanish way of doing business today. After going to bed after the Astros game last night at 5:30, waking up at 8:30 to go over to my future apartment, waking up the girl that lives there, and waiting for 3 hours for the cable guy, I found out that the owner of the complex didn't want ONO (the internet company) to install a cable in his apartment. Even after the cable guy told him it wouldn't be more than a cable, he still said no.

So the cable guy left. We eventually talked him into it (apparently he thought he had to get a 4'x4' box installed and pay for it, even though the cable guy told him he wouldn't), and I've rescheduled the cable guy for tomorrow. This of course, is just the end of the story; I already tried to get internet, was told I couldn't get it on my street, then told by a different girl I could get it, then told I couldn't get it without a bank account, then told I couldn't get it on my street again, then finally was scheduled for the appointment today.

I hate Skip Bayless and think he's a terrible human being. But this article about eliminating kickers from football is great. A little mean at the beginning, but i like his style and what he has to say.

Excerpt: Giant, gifted men battle their guts out playing a violent game, and the outcome is all too often decided by some former soccer player who has absolutely nothing to do with football. No football talent. No football heart. No football mind.

Eliminate Kickers
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=bayless/050929




* technically not true, but I was proving a point

'stros

I stayed up to listen to the stros-cards game, in the hope that the astros would pick up an extra game on the phils. as of now, it's not looking so good. But one thing in particular: Reggie Sanders hit a two-run homer off Scott Strickland to break a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the fifth. The St. Louis crowd did not stop cheering for him until he came back out of the dugout for a curtain call.

A curtain call after a 5th inning homer in a game that means nothing to your club other than a tune-up for your struggling ace? In baseball circles we talk about Cards fans as being classy and educated, but that's pretty unnecessary and disrespectful to the opposing pitcher, in my mind...

About that opposing pitcher - why was Scott Strickland in the game in the first place? I'm beginning to think James Richards (old family friend, normally very pro-Astros) was right after all: Garner's not a very good ballgame manager.

Ooh Astros just tied it back up... nice... (They would later win the game in dramatic
fashion, negating the offensive explosion from the Phillies, and giving them a chance to seal the deal and the Wild Card by Friday)

Sober moment: heard about two of the girls from my course who moved to Sevilla had their car broken into the first night they were there. All their luggage was stolen. I was sad for them, but they did leave all their stuff in a car in the middle of downtown. One of the girls was already upset about her whole experience in Spain that she packed it in and went home. The other's trying to stick it out for a few months.

New ledger; Spaniards criticizing my english

I found out that my 7:30 am flight from Sevilla to Madrid to Chicago next week for Liz's (Becka's sister) wedding is going to cause me considerable damage, primarily to my pocketbook. I don't know why I picked that early of a flight, b/c I can't get to Sevilla that early; it's 2 hours away and there aren't buses or trains that early.

I have the option of staying overnight in Sevilla, but that's not really an option b/c I have to teach from 9-10pm the day before and there are no buses/trains after that.

I'll end up paying $175 to cancel, plus $69 for the new ticket. This is going into my newest ledger, called

"Why do things early? You just get screwed. The Last Minute is the best minute"
1. Booked hotel for three nights in Cadiz on internet before coming because 'you don't go to Europe without a place to stay'. Found out hotel was misleading about its location and was 1.5 hours away, in Cadiz province, not city. Cost $300.
2.Bought airline ticket months in advance, trying to save money. End up spending $200 more than if I had tried to book it a week in advance.

Ended my training phase of teaching English today. Next week, it's the real deal: I will teach four classes of about 2.3 students each. Hopefully they'll fill up, but for now, it's just a few classes: 7-8 year olds, 10-11, 12-13, and adults.

I met one of the adults yesterday and he made fun of the way I said the number 20. He asked me, 'come se dice veinte en ingles?' I said, 'twenty' thinking 'whew, this guy's really low level...' But then he told me, 'no, it's twenty.' I said, 'that's what i said, twenty.' Then I got a lecture about how American English sounded bad and how you're supposed to pronounce the 't', as in 'twenty' instead of 'twinny.' So he should be fun in class.

Losses across the board

So if Peyton Manning wasn't undroppable, I'd cut him from my fantasy team for costing me two losses already this season with his embarrassing underperformances. I think I'm going to write an e-mail to Tony Dungy and tell him to bench his ass.

What's that? The Colts are 3-0? Who cares? Peyton's thrown 2 TDs and 2 INTs through three games. Last year he had 9 TDs and 1 INT through the same number of games. That's just not cutting it for my #1 draft pick.

Astros lost thanks to Mike 'the Joke' Gallo and Phil 'I outsmart myself worse than Bob Brenley' Garner, who decided that a left-handed specialist who cannot get left-handers out should come in to pitch with the game on the line with a left-hander at bat.

Went to a charming town called Vejer de la Frontera that the tour book said was a 'labrynth' and called it a 'white village.' I wasn't sure what either of those meant until I saw the city on a hill with wildly undulating streets and every building whitewashed. Really cool.

Went to church this morning in the Cathedral. Huge dud. They decided that 17th century acoustic ingenuity wasn't enough for the demands of modern Churchhood, so they installed a massive microphone and speaker system in the church. Since the natural acoustics were still in place, the combination resulted in a terrible echo, rendering most of what the priest said in Spanish unintelligible. There was hardly any life in the church and it was inundated with tourists walking in during the liturgy. Despite a beautiful setting, I doubt I'll return very much.

Estate Party Canceled

My friend Elisabeth got us invited to a party at an estate in the countryside, complete with an enormous Spanish-style bbq, swimming pools, horseback riding, and all kinds of fancy rich-Spanish people stuff. Her roommate did so b/c he felt back for bringing 10 people back to the apartment at 6 in the morning and being louder after Elisabeth asked them to keep it down. He made her coffee when she woke up and then walked her to school, trying to appear nice, but Elisabeth knew that he was really just trying to get her from telling anyone at school about the debacle, knowing it would cost him future students from living there.

But then he called us after we waited around all day for him to pick us up to say he ran out of room in his car b/c he had to carry some speakers and he'd already promised rides to two others. She was not too pleased.

Our backup plan was going to the beach, though, so it wasn't too bad.

I go to church this morning at the cathedral, which should be an experience, to say the least. It is beautiful inside, except for the Wrigley Field-style nets everywhere to catch falling pieces of ceiling...