Tag Archives: brewers

General, Sports, Uncategorized

Quick Notes Slash Recap

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Hi.

Successful weekend for the most part, but I still have more to get done this evening…

  • Brewers took until today to win a game, but at least they avoided the sweep.  What the hell is with the Cubs?  How long do you think they’re going to wait to start losing?  All-Star break?  Maybe.
  • Here is my new address, effective June 28: 4121 N Ardmore Ave, Apt 9, Radio City, WI, 53211.
  • Grandma’s floor is back, it’s dry, and it only took about 4 hours to finish up.
  • Since Marty and Lise are going to start showing my place tomorrow, I have to go now and get some stuff picked up around here.
General, Uncategorized

Twinkies and the Weekend

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Schrubbe couldn’t make it to the baseball game last night, because of the flooding up in Oshkosh.  He didn’t miss much.  Just 12-20 thousand g-damn Twins fans making a ruckus and the Brewers doing exactly squat at the plate.  Seems like they’ve had a tendancy to make average or below-average pitchers look like Cy Young a lot this season…

Anyway, Michelle went with me to the game instead, and we still had a good time.  It was hat day, so we got those, and the weather was really nice for a game.  Summer is 100% officially here, and I don’t mind one bit.

I have to make a run today over to my new apartment building to confirm which unit I want– the one that I’ll probably move into is occupied right now, so I wasn’t able to see it the other day.  Worst-case scenario, if there is something horrific about this one (I don’t anticipate that, but…) I will take the other that I saw on Thursday.

When I get home, I think I’m going to get busy with packing.  I’m going to pull all my stuff down from the hotter-than-hell attic, and see if there’s anything there that I can get rid of.  If not, it’ll just be time to start putting stuff back in boxes and getting it set to move.  Two weeks to go, and I’ll be on my way out.  After this afternoon, I’ll know my exact new address, too, so I could make calls to arrange for moving my electricity and cable services, forward my mail… I could probably get the trailer booked, too.  So I’ll be busy.

Tomorrow, Joe and I are putting Grandma’s kitchen floor back together.  So, y’know, fun weekend top-to-bottom.

General, Uncategorized

You Can Really Actually Call Off the Dogs Officially This Time– No Kidding, I Am Absolutely Certain

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I’m going to be moving into the place I looked at yesterday afternoon on Ardmore Avenue in Shorewood.

A few of the major features that sold me on it:

  • Less money overall per month than the one I saw on Knapp the day before, and more space
  • wood floors– look nice, easy to take care of (the other one had carpeting)
  • I am dead serious– the storage unit in the basement is about TEN FEET by TEN FEET.  It’s frakking huge.
  • Parking readily available, and cheap
  • Month-to-month.  If it becomes necessary, I can check out at will, with a scant 28-day notice.

More on this as info becomes available.  To my peeps in Osh Vegas: stay the course, good luck bailing out, things will get back to normal.

See you at the Brewers game later if you end up there…

General, Uncategorized

Call Off the Dogs

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I believe that I found a new place to live.

I can’t say that with 100% certainty, since I haven’t heard back yet about the application that I filed on Wednesday, but I think it looks pretty good.  All things considered, I will be trading a lot of space and the free & available washer/dryer that I have now for a significantly shorter commute and slightly lower overall per-month living expenses.  I’m glad that I’ll now be able to focus on thesis work and getting packed in the short term.

I was told when I saw the apartment that I would have the opportunity to move in early, paying a pro-rated portion of a month’s rent.  I’ll probably shoot for a week ahead; I took a few days at the end of the month off for that very purpose.  I’ll now be just under 2 miles from work; an easily bike-able distance.  Maybe I’ll even get a chance to shed some of this doughy flab with the balance of my summer, too…

Been very busy at work, which is my excuse for the gap of several days between posts.  In the meantime, what’s happened?  The Brew Crew is on a tear— here’s hoping they can carry that momentum through the road trip.  Even if the Cubs haven’t gotten around to losing just yet, you know they’re not going to win out for the rest of the season.  Brewers just have to keep it up, and put the lengthy losing streaks behind them.  It’s a well-documented point that a season is going to have ups and downs, but Milwaukee has pretty much used up their allotment of “downs” already.

Also very glad to see the Democratic presedential primary season finally coming to a conclusion.  I was glad to deliver the news to Petters last night that Hillary is going to officially leave the race at the end of this week.  In the short term, that means that focus will shift to Obama selecting a VP.  I am NOT at all in favor of the Obama/Clinton ticket for one major reason: I would be concerned that Hillary was trying to run the show from the backseat all too often.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Clintons are really, really, REALLY pushy when it comes to politics, and that’s probably putting it lightly.  Barack needs her to be a valued campaign resource, and he definitely needs her endorsement, but he also needs to make this potential presidency his own.  I’m pretty sure that’s what we (his supporters) got on board for.

OK, back to it.  These phone calls aren’t going to ignore themselves…

General, Uncategorized

There Has Been No Excitement

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Back to work after a long weekend.  Glad that I’m only in for a half-day today…

I’ve had some inquiries, and just wanted to let any curious parties know right off the bat– nothing particularly exciting happened over the weekend.  Had a pleasant time in the Apostle Islands region and that was it.  Madeline Island is nice.  The weather was pretty good.  It rained a bit on Sunday, but wasn’t too big of a deal.  Kayaking was fun.  I’d like to do it again.

Michelle and I are going to go to the Brewers game on Wednesday; they extended that $10 outfield loge special for an extra day and we managed to get 2 seats together.

Sports, Uncategorized

Numbers Game

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Well, here’s the facts, Jack– the baseball season is one quarter of the way done. The Crew is in last place, 7.5 games behind the Cubs. If they’re going to live up to ANYONE’S expectations for this year, including their own, they’ve got their work cut out for them. One of the positive ways to spin their current plight is to note that Chicago was, at one point, 8.5 games behind the Brewers last year and won the division. The bad side of that point is that it would take a meltdown, of, well, Milwaukeean proportions for this thing to come together…

You figure 90 victories will still win the division. Nobody’s running away at this point to make that speculation any different. With their 118 remaining games, the Brewers would have to go 70-48. No small task. Another positive to take away is that out of these first 44 games, they’ve played 25 on the road. That means 63 more home dates versus 55 more on the road, and 7 of those are coming up in the course of this week. Once they get back, they’ll have quite a bit of the home-cookin’ from here on out. But we’re still talking about maintaining an overall .600 winning percentage, and the Brewers are just 11-9 at home.

What if they split the rest of the road games (which is what you kind of need to do, at a minimum, to be a winning ballclub)? Let’s say they go 27-28 the rest of the year on the road. They’d have to be 43-20 at home, a .680 winning percentage. Phew.

Baseball involves a LOT of numbers, and you’ll find no shortage of ways to dissect everything about the sport out on the ‘tubes, the TV, or in the paper. In the end, this is just another way of saying, “It ain’t early. It’s starting to be desperate.”

Sports, Uncategorized

Quite a Finish

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Dave and I were at the baseball game last night.  Glad we stayed until the bittersweet end— you may have seen the highlights of Rickie Weeks doubling in a pair of runs to snatch a victory from the division-leading Cardinals.  Even though the pitching hung in there and Manny Parra settled in to a decent outing once the dust settled on his first two rocky innings, it was still a struggle to be able to watch these guys methodically eek out hits throughout the game.  We watched the same players just light people up last year, so that makes it a little frustrating.  I turned to Dave in the top of the 8th and said, “You know it’s gotten bad when we’re down just 1 run and you don’t feel like there’s a chance of pulling it out.”

Well, I spoke too soon.  Sheets takes to the hill in about 20 minutes, and we’ve got a chance to get back to .500 (uughh), and within 3 games of first place.  Who thought that this division was going to be such a dogfight?  Answer: nobody.  I forget where I was reading earlier this week that pitchers are approaching our young guns (Fielder, Braun, et al.) a little differently this season, now that they’ve had a whole year to adjust.  Once again, for the 3rd year in a row, the Brewers find themselves at a sort of crossroads: in ’06, it was “can we finish with a winning record after a 81-81 ’05?”, then in ’07, it was “now that everyone has ‘arrived,’ will we deliver on all the potential?”, and here in ’08, it’s “can we continue to persevere after our chance of sneaking up on people has ended?”

We’ll find out.  Go Crew!

General, Uncategorized

The Exciting Conclusion

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No, I am not referring to this evening’s Brewers game versus the Cardinals.

Since it was on TV, that did keep me from finishing up my little two-parter about my experience with Ubuntu, though.  Will be taking some time out at lunch tomorrow to wrap that up, so look for it.

Also look for Larry Kryskowiak to be fired within 12 hours.

Sports, Uncategorized

Home Opener Recap

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It was a nice opening day overall.  Aside from the fact that we beat their ass, it was a good pre- and post-game outing.  If you didn’t have a chance to keep up throughout Friday, the pictures that I sent to Flickr periodically are, of course, still there.

Was there ever a mob of people, though!  I didn’t check– was it a bigger crowd than last year?  I assume so, just due to the media talking about it being the 3rd largest crowd ever at Miller Park, etc.  That was the one thing I could do without, and I might even think about handling the opener a little differently next year– there are SOOOOO many people at that park on the first day, and ones that won’t show up to another baseball game all year.  They’re there for the party only, and sure, that’s totally fine, but for someone like me who goes because I enjoy the game first and foremost, it gets a little bit nuts.

I stood in line to pee during the pre-game tailgate for something like 20 minutes.  There were plenty of folks there that weren’t willing to wait that long (they just peed next to their cars).  I think my last Flickr shot sort of says it all about the condition of the parking lot afterwards– it was like being in a paved garbage dump.  I really felt sorry for the folks that had to come in there and clean that place up in time for an afternoon game today.

So, I dunno, y’know?  Like I said, I understand that the home opener is always going to be a big party, but maybe for me, who is going to go to 15 or 20 games during the year regardless, what’s the diff if I’m at the first one?  I’ll probably change my mind by this time next year, but this is certainly the first time I’ve ever considered it.

General, Sports, Uncategorized

Milwaukee Opener..!

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Headed out the door shortly to get started on the opening day festivities– Schrubbe came down last night, and we’re going to run to the grocery store before braving the traffic mess.

Looking forward to a good game.  The Brewers are a lot better than San Fran on paper, so I think the day should end happily for the hometown crowd.  I’ll try to send up some photos throughout the day onto the Flickrs, so keep an eye out if you’re bored at work.
I would be able to blog from my seat if the fracking “post-via-email” thing would work right.  I might dick with that a little bit over the weekend.

Catch you after the game!