Random Thoughts for the Week of June 18, 2012

• This past week I celebrated my first Father’s Day as a father.  It was surreal.  For 38 years Tom and I celebrated Father’s Day, often with our Dad away on a fishing trip (and why not let Dad enjoy his favorite hobby on the day meant for him?).  The more I see how I am with Alex and Mindi and my in laws the more I realize how much I learned from my dad.  Sometimes what to do, other times what not to do.  Above all my dad was always there, ever present in my life if not always deeply involved.  I sometimes forget that isn’t the case for so many kids in the world.  I’m blessed.
• Thanks, L.T., for so many great years of Fantasy Football.  You were a great player and a great teammate and you always looked out for your FF owners.  Good luck to you, sir.  Now, who the hell am I going to get from my #3 RB???
• Seriously folks … there are about 10000 other golfers in the world.  Can we please just accept that Tiger Woods is now (pardon the pun) on par with them and stop focusing 98% of our coverage around his game?  He can’t be expected to win EVERY tournament he appears in, no more than any other PGA golfer.  Get off his back so maybe, just maybe, he can enjoy the game again and get some true happiness back in his life.  The pressure we as watchers put on him is too much for anyone.
• Seriously, when will the sports media realize they CREATE phenoms like Woods and Hossler.  They really need to be careful about their impact on these people.  Yes, they need to make money and yes they need to create tension and someone to root for.  But when I see the pressure Tiger plays under and see how Hossler’s game went to shit on the last day because the pressure was on, I can’t help but think the media is partially to blame.  I can only hope they recognize this and tread more responsibly in the future.  HA.  Yeah, right.
• I should really stop reading the New York Post.  All week I’ve seen report after report of people being absolutely CRUEL to each other.  Stealing, beating, killing each other, and all for the most petty of reasons.  I truly worry about the world my son is growing up into; a world filled with the selfish and the uncaring and the multitude of people who think they are entitled to be cared for by the rest of society one way or another.  It got so bad I had terrible nightmares for the first time in years about the world going mad.  Our human society needs a serious morality reboot or there will come a day when the Event occurs that will turn us all against each other and all hope will be lost.  Wow, that was morose.  Time to liven things up a bit.
• If you ask me the one time when you really, really want instant reply in baseball is for plays at home plate.  Whether a base runner is safe or out at home can make or break an inning and naturally the entire game/series for a team.  So why don’t they use instant replay there?  I have no clue, but there were probably a dozen bad calls at home this past weekend at all levels of play where the instant reply could have ensured the true outcome of a game. 
• A lukewarm start to CWS this year, probably just because Mindi and I aren’t there.  I was rooting for Stony Brook but I’ll go for Arizona now.  All I really want is for the other remaining teams to lose.
• The Blatt gets torn down next month and I’ve said my goodbyes … but still my mind wanders back to that happy memory: sitting behind the third-base dugout in our normal seats looking out over the zoo and the Missouri River into Iowa as the sun slowly set behind the stadium.  The smell of the hot dogs and the peanuts.  The whack of the bats and the roar of the crowd.  It was 1987, the height of my youth, and possibly one of my happiest family memories.  I’m glad I have that memory to take with me long after those seats are forever removed.
• Still searching for the perfect coffee.
• RIP Ray Bradbury.  “The Martian Chronicles” opened my eyes to so many potential wonders in science fiction that I’m still reeling today.  I’m not sure what you were thinking with “Dandelion Wine” or trying to read your own works for audiobooks, but your plots and twists kept we readers on our toes and never knew quite what to expect.  Thank you for showing society that even in the world of scifi society’s choices and behaviors have consequences out amongst the stars.
• Good for you, Bobbi Kristina, for ditching your dad’s wedding this weekend.  I think anyone who feels Bobby Brown is guiltless of the lifestyle that led to Whitney Houston’s death is disillusioning themselves, Brown included.  She caused her own death, but he created the environment and supported the means with which she did it.  I hope he didn’t get anything for Father’s Day either.
• This weekend I probably tripled the lifetime amount of time I spent watching golf.  It does get me itching to play, and it is very relaxing but gets a little boring.
• I haven’t touched my book or my writing for over a month.  I haven’t exercised either.  Or read a book.  Yikes.  Gotta get back into the swing of things here.  One thing at a time …

ALEXANDER UPDATE

• It was a good weekend with the in-laws as they got to know their 4th grandchild a little better.  The best part was my mother-in-law Janet, or Nana as she prefers.  She is like the Baby Whisperer.  She had tricks and ideas that just made things so much better, and Alex took to her like they’d known each other for years!  We called her Doctor Nana she was so good at taking care of Alex.  Also, she’s the only mother-in-law I’ve heard of who not only helped with the yard work while she was here, she even picked up dog poop!  Janet is one of a kind in many ways.
• Alex is having a bit of a burping problem.  I don’t want to say it’s a gas problem because he’s got the farting down to an art form.  The toxic gas has aged Mindi by a few months, I think.  We just can’t get him to burp as easily.  Hopefully the doctor will help us out with this during his checkup tomorrow. 
• Mindi is recovering very well too, far faster than I think most women would.  If only I could come up with a cure for the herniated disk …
• I’m not sure what I love about Alex more: the look on his face when he sees me or the coos he makes throughout the day.  Yeah, it’s the way he looks at me.  He doesn’t know it’s love, but it is and it warms my heart even at 3 AM.