Open Letter to the (former) NFLPA and the NFL Owners

I missed the boat with the lockout occurring while we were in the hospital with Darcy. I try not to take sides, but since the owners wanted to continue negotiating and made a last minute offer where they finally made a lot of concessions, I think I blame the players a bit more right now. I know there's still tons of time, but now that you decertified, which triggered the owners to begin the lockout, there are going to be moutains of lawsuits to clear before you can strike a deal.

But this letter is squarely aimed at both sides. Because in the end, this is a give and take situation, and the owners only gave a little bit...

You can all count your money, which is still probably decent even with no football. Ticket holders can cry foul about the money they put out for tickets, but it will be returned. We can all gripe about what we'll do on Sundays, but there are plenty of things we can do.

The thing that puts this labor tragedy in perspective for me is how my 2 year old son, who's been talking about going to Ravens Training Camp NON-STOP since it left Westminster, now has to be told that he probably can't go to Training Camp this year, because it won't happen. Maybe they get a deal done late and it's held at M&T Bank Stadium, which is fine, I'll take him to it once or twice. But having to try to explain to a 2 year old everyday why this great thing known as football won't be around for him to watch? That's just wrong.

Take it with a grain of salt, but there are just somethings about this lockout/decertification/money grubbing which really get tired. Congrats football, you've managed to get me excited for baseball.

Oops, I done it again...

Over/under on how long I'll stick with blogging again: 3 weeks, or 4 blog posts

So, much has happened since our vacation...That was 9 months ago. About the time it takes to grow a baby...oh wait...

Yup, so we're officially a clan now. Not just a trio, we added a 2nd guitarist to our merry little band. We found out in July 2010, discovered the baby was a she in November 2010, and named her Darcy Noelle shortly after. The original plan was to have a C-section on March 15th, at 39 weeks pregnant. On March 8th, the doctor sent Shannon for a non-stress test to make sure the baby was moving okay. I can clearly remember the discussion as she was going in for the test, because she wanted BBQ for dinner, but we had no idea when the test would be done, so I had just planned to make something for Noah and we'd figure out dinner afterwards. Well, around 8pm that plan went out the window because as they were doing the non-stress test, they saw Shannon was contracting, and pretty regularly and quickly. After an overnight observation, her doctor advised us to go with the C-section a week early, since he was confident Darcy was good enough to go and the contractions wouldn't stop with meds or fluids.

So, at 12:28pm on March 9th, we brought baby #2 into the world. So in addition to coming a week early, our second suprise was when they weighed her. Noah was...a big baby. 9 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches long, pretty heavyweight size for a baby, even at 42 weeks. As the doctors measured Shannon during her pregnancy, they came to the conclusion that Darcy would be BIGGER if not as big as Noah. So imagine our shock when the scale read 5 lbs 12 oz. 62% of Noah's birthweight. I actually decided to put their scale pictures side by side to compare...

Image wouldn't fit here...

So when she then dropped birthweight, it got even scarier for us, getting down to 5 lbs, 2 oz by the time we left the hospital. She's maintained since then, and we'll hear from the doctor today if she's gained. If she hasn't, I have to know where it's going. We're trying to let her dictate when she eats, but we usually supplement at 4 hours with about 40 cc of milk if she isn't eating. She's been eating much better, so I have to think the weight is about to come up.

Noah has been taking it in stride. We're all adjusting to new routines. Noah has been waking up and running into Darcy's room before we can get him. This wouldn't be an issue, but he likes trying to poke her. Also, he's waking up at around 4am or 5am, which is crazy early considering it takes him until 8:30 or 9 to go to sleep. We've been adjusting too. He's very pushy for an almost 3 year old, and since we're already stressed about Darcy, we end up getting frustrated a lot. Most recent example is the football shirts. Noah has two Redskin shirts and two Ravens shirts. Over time, it's gotten to be that he will try re-wearing the shirts a 2nd day in a row, or throwing a fit if we ask him to wear a non-football shirt. I think we both reached a breaking point on Saturday. All his football shirts were dirty, so we put him in a guitar shirt. I didn't count, but he must've told us around 40 times on Saturday that he wanted to wear his football shirt. And he's also in that "flip-flop phase" now. The one where when I ask him to make a decision, he says "okay I want spaghetti for dinner. No! I was ham steak. No Ham Steak! I want spaghetti...". He's still an awesome kid, and I love him like crazy, but he's definitley a 3 year old in his mannerisms.

And that's been my life for the past two weeks. I have work emails open, but they've smartly not included me in many things because I end up doing stuff even when i'm supposed to be ignoring work. I start working again tomorrow, albeit from home so that we can begin making sure Shannon can handle everything without me around (driving, getting lunch, getting things to drink, etc). More to elaborate on later, hopefully I can stick with this blog thing for longer than a month. We shall see...

The Griswolds, we are not...

Ah, the relaxation of vacation...Or, broken down into more verbose terms...the stress and craziness of packing everything up, the uncomfortableness of a long car ride, the stress and craziness of getting settled into your vacation spot, a rush of a few days of grat fun, the stress and craziness of getting everything RE-PACKED, the uncomfortableness of another long car ride, then back to reality.

This year's adventure journey found us going tent camping in Pigeon Forge, TN for a week. The trip went pretty well...we had some stressful moments, like Noah picking this week to begin the typical 2yo tantrums, sleeping (the first couple nights were a bit rough, but by the last 3, I had a good routine down where we waited until 8:30-8:45 for bedtime routine and it went about as clockwork as it does at home. Napping was a different story), the campsite in general...but we had a lot of fun at Dollywood and Splash Country, we did a bit of random exploring which was cool, and the view of the Smoky Mountains was great pretty much EVERYWHERE you went.

I won't get too much into the play-by-play though...this blog entry is going to focus on two or three gripes that came up during the trip...

1. The Natural Bridge - This is, as the name says, a natural archway crated by Cedar Creek which is about 200 feet tall. You see a lot of signs for this coming down I-81, and we decided on the way there, how often are we really going to be here? Let's check this out. Well, after driving about 5 miles, you come to the "Natural Bridge Entrance Building", which is where you can buy your 18 DOLLAR ticket to see the Natural Bridge. Seriously??? In what world can you justify an 18 dollar price to see a natural landmark? I really want to know the justification for what the 18 dollars does, other than simply make money for someone. To make matters even MORE frustrating...so we decide nevermind, let's just head back to the road. As you drive past this big canyon where the bridge is, THEY PUT UP 10 FOOT HIGH FENCES to make sure people who didn't pay can't get a glimpse of this thing. Completely ridiculous! Especially when you read about the bridge, and how it was a sacred site for the Native American Monacan tribe. So, let's celebrate how sacred it was by charging an arm and a leg for someone to see such a thing of beauty.

2. Common decency - I've been to camp sites with a shared bathouse a couple times before, so this isn't new, but it just boils to the surface for me again. We were at this camp 6 days. Literally, every day, I came across at least once a toilet that hadn't been flushed. Really? In what world does it make sense to drop your business and then just walk out saying "That's how I roll!" I mean, HOW HARD is it to turn around once you've finished and hit a damn lever! And the one time both toilets were clean, the urinal had been used as an ashtray. It's just nasty and really gets me wondering the train of thought going through the mind of whoever did that..."Eh, we pay the campsite to clean the bathroom, so they will flush it for me...Too much work for me to do it". It wasn't just the toilets either. Once or twice, I came in to find someone had just left the shower on full blast. Because clean water is this thing that we can just demand whenever we want it, it'll NEVER run out.

I guess those were my only two soapbox things that came up on vacation. To balance out the negative, I have come to really appreciate places that have splash pads. I swear, Noah could've spent 8 hours straight at the splash pads at Splash Country.

Your Forgotten Orioles

Wow, I almost forgot about the big Orioles news that happened this past week. That's not a good sign, Orioles!

So Dave Trembley joins the League of Failed Oriole Managers...so I guess he can join Mike Hargrove, Lee Mazzilli, Sam Perlozzo, and Ray Miller in chomping on a cigar and laughing at the Oriole Front Office who are trying to figure out a way out of 13 seasons of losing baseball. I'd feel bad for him, but honestly, I think even Dave wanted out by the end...

I don't follow the Orioles very closely anymore, but I try to keep tabs and be analytical. So, the big question for EVERYONE is WHAT IS THE #$!#@ PROBLEM? How is it teams like Tampa Bay and Toronto can go through reboots and win within a year or two? I understand that a reboot is supposed to take time, but you are also supposed to IMPROVE! In the past 3 years under MacPhail, we have gotten WORSE EVERY YEAR!

So, what do you change?

The manager - It's a band aid on an amputation. Does anyone really expect Juan Samuel to have more luck than Dave Trembley? Does anyone really think if we kidnapped Joe Torre and made him manage here, we'd suddenly be a winning baseball team? Players make the plays, or in our case, SEVERLY SCREW UP the plays

The GM - AMP is the next one on the hot seat...but he hasn't done a lot wrong. Gonzalez was a bad idea, I'll give you that. Atkins hasn't worked out, but he was supposed to be a low risk, low reward stopgap. Tejada hasn't been bad, all things considered. So then you'd have to go after him for not bringing in top dollar talent. But, the great teams grow their players, not buy them. Even the stupid pinstripes have begun growing arms and bats more than buying them. And we've been stockpiling our minor league prospects. And then, look at our prospects last year...Wieters looked like he was putting it together, Adam Jones was a Gold Glover, Nolan Reimold was crushing the ball before his injury, Bergesen was pitching lights out, Matusz was looking good for a greenhorn...but then this year, they all fell apart.

The Players - See above...plus, we can't keep changing player strategy every 2 years. About 4-5 years ago, we went the route of buying the talent when we grabbed Ponson, Javy Lopez, Miguel Tejada, and Raffy. We traded for Sosa a year later too. That did us NO GOOD.

So what? What can be done? Because I can't figure out a damn thing. We don't even have a consistent problem. It used to be our pitching, but our starting pitching (until 2 weeks ago) was being solid. Our bullpen sucks too, but we've been moving failed starters there, so it should get better? Our hitting sucks, but what move do we take there? Brining in one big bat can't solve this. And we tried getting a ton of prospects, none of them are putting 2 and 2 together in the minors.

So, amidst this time of change for the O's, my hopes are bottoming out. All I can hope is this is just 13 years of bad luck stored up and brought on us all in one season. I remember in Brian Billick's last season with the Ravens, where we lost 9 straight, there was a quote from one of the players..."Last year, every bounce went our way...This year, every bounce is going the other way" That about sums up the Orioles. Anything that can go wrong for them, anything you can imagine, ends up happening. Can you even wrap your ahead around who we'll send to the All-Star Game? In all fairness to the rest of the MLB, we should be barred. No one on this team has played well enough to merit an All-Star nod.

So, best to you Juan Samuel. But don't unpack your stuff in the manager's office. As a matter of fact, for your sake, I would start calling other teams and ask for them to take pity and let you be their bench coach or something.

Port Discovery for a 2 Year Old

With the Curious George exhibit at Port Discovery closing this weekend, we decided to take Noah so he could play around with George and see the museum. Now, I had never been to Port Discovery, but I think Shannon had gone, or had gotten feedback from her mom, saying that she didn't think Noah would get too much out for it, definitley not the $13 admission price worth...But, since George was there, we were going to try it anyway. Even though little man is just 2, I think he gets a lot out of exhibits for 3 and 4 year olds too because...well, he talks like one :-P A lot of 2 year olds we meet are just putting 2 or 3 words together. Noah puts full sentences together! Anecdote to kick this off, they have a VW Bug on the 1st floor for kids to play with. I mean, a FULL SIZE VW Bug. So Noah climbs in to drive the wheel...What's the first thing he does? HE REACHES UP TO BUCKLE THE SEATBELT. I'm dumbfounded...Then, he moves to the radio and says "I'm going to turn on the radio" and starts turning up the volume knob and hitting buttons. Yeah, I think he's a bit of a smart cookie there...

So anyway, we parked, paid, and headed in. First floor has a couple of things, we skipped some stuff in the museum to try to prioritize what Noah would want to see...so from what we did/saw, the first floor has a big soccer court which Noah ran around on for awhile, didn't get much actual soccer in though but he was having fun. We moved onto the "store" exhibit, which was a Royal Farms setup with play food boxes, bottles, and cans, cash register, etc. Also had the VW Bug and gas pump. Thing we skipped in the first floor is "KidWorks". I'd probably say that is the "Crown Jewel" of Port Discovery, as it's a big jungle gym/learning stations which go through ALL 3 floors...like you go in at floor 1, go through the stations climbing upwards, and end up at Floor 3. The ages on that one is 4 and up, and 4-6 is meant to stick to the first floor, so...yeah, we skipped that.

Floor 2 greeted us with a train setup, with a crane type thing to pick up boxes. Noah's takeway from this...sitting on the train and trying to find a steering wheel. So, after finding the engine of the train and letting him get about 5 mins solid of steering a wheel, we headed to the "Sensation Station", which is designed for little ones. Things in this room are a little playset with a slide, climbing stuff, etc...appropriate for infant-4yo, water tubes with bubbles, ball pit, lots of toddler toys. Noah's takeaway from this..."Hey look...a LAWNMOWER". Yes, the toy he plays with all the time at home and daycare is the toy he spent about 10 minutes playing with in that place. You know, you can try to figure out toddlers all you want, but they know what they like...Eventually, I convinced him to try out the ballpit, which he proceeded to get buried in. He loved that a lot too.

Eventually, we pushed on and decided to just head to floor 3. This was supposed to be the big attraction...CURIOUS GEORGE. Now, I watch Curious George the cartoon on PBS with Noah in the mornings. Seeing the characters and things, I expected there would be lots of fun things he'd want to play with and we'd have a solid hour of him playing there. A lot of the exhibits though, went a little over Noah's head. Maybe he just wasn't in the mood, but the ones I can remember:

Shadow Wall - Noah liked this mainly for the spinning wheel for different light colors

Elevator/Mail Box doors (You could open these and see what was there) - Noah liked opening (and slamming shut) the elevator doors

Construction Zone (Big conveyor belt to carry blocks up about 7 feet, then roll down a series of rollers to come back to the ground) - Noah only like the wheel you turn to push the blocks up...And he wanted to DRIVE the wheel, not turn it in one direction only

Playing with Wind - Noah did like this one, you had big blowers which you could use to try to turn windmills and ring windchimes.

Build Your Own Windmill - Tinkertoys you could make a windmill out of and fans to test it, but a lot of tinkertoys were missing

Grocery Store - This would've been fun, you could take plush groceries and sort them, weigh them, etc. But they only had 3 plush groceries...2 watermelons and 1 pear. Guessing most of them were taken or moved or...idk

Make Your Own Pinwheel or Windsock - This place was a mess, it was a station where you could take paper, use scissors/holepunch/other tools, and make a craft project per directions on the station. But it looked like it'd been ravaged already, we just decided to skip it at that point

Stuffed Animals - They had little rabbit/bird houses which had stuffed animals. Also a big tree which had a squirrel's hole. Noah played with those a lot too.

So, all that considered, Noah got some out of the George exhibit, but for some reason I expected there to be more "play" stuff. A lot of the exhibits seemed to be geared a little older (Ding ding ding to Shannon, she was right...Fully admitted), so Noah didn't get interested in them. So, after about 15 mins or so, we moved on...

The thing Noah loved the most was the WATER ROOM. Holy crap, that could've been where we got our money's worth. So, in this water room, there are:

Big Spout Area - This was a raised floor, slatted to let water drain, with a bunch of small spouts sticking out of the floor where water was coming up. You could then take various pipes and build water fountains out of it. Noah just liked spilling the water all on himself (Disclaimer, they did have raincoats and crocs available for borrowing, we just let Noah go to it in his regular clothes). They also have a station with two water guns where you can shoot different music instruments to make different sounds, Noah liked this too.

Water Table - HUGE, about 20-25 foot long table which sloped downwards...Different areas...at the top was a raincloud which kept water flowing into the area. Right after this, you could build channels with little walls. After this, you could either dam up the water, or create a lock (I didn't get to play with...I mean, Noah didn't get to play with this, so we didn't get to see how cool it was.) After this were various toys you could play in the water with. At the end, there was a "1 and under" exhibit which was a shallow crate sitting right above the water. I can only guess you would put your 1 year old in the crate to let them experience the water, seemed weird to me. They also had spray bottles at the end of the table you could use to spray and then squeegie the windows of the Water Room right beside the Water Table.

Big Bubble - The thing we got to play with at the Gettysburg Explore&More museum...only this one was run by the person INSIDE the bubble. Also, you had to bring this one up VERY slowly to get it to work. But, was still fun.

Sink or Float - Whole bunch of items you can toss into an aquarium to see if it sinks of floats, you can then use a lever to lift a sifting pan to retrieve objects. Noah just liked throwing things in water and playing with the lever.

Building a Boat - Legos and a water table where you could try building a boat that floats. Only one boat that I could see, but Noah just wanted to throw Legos in the water anyway

BIG DRYER - Before you leave, they have a heat lamp and a wall of blowers to try to dry some water off you. I like that one.

After about 2 hours there, we knew Noah was hungry, Shannon wasn't feeling well, so we decided to wait for the 1pm "Meet Curious George" event then leave. At 1:05, no one had come yet. Not even a museum employee to say "We're running late". Noah didn't seem to care either way, so we just left.

Overall, my impression of Port Discovery...I think Noah will get a lot out of them in 2-3 years. As smart as he is for his age, some of these exhibits are just not that appealing to him right now. Until then, there's lots of other places which are not as expensive and crowded where we can let him explore and play. But, I will give them that they had a LOT of things to explore there. But, $13 is a pretty good chunk of change, so we'll probably wait a couple of years before taking him back there.

The rush of the party

The buildup for Noah's 2nd birthday party has actually been like a month and a half long. It was supposed to be on the 15th, and we spent the week before that preparing...only for Noah to catch Foot and Mouth Disease the night before and we had to postpone two weeks. So, we then spent two weeks fixing up the living room with new paint and new furniture, and then re-cleaning the house.

This morning, our to-do list was mowing the lawn, cleaning, and then cold prep. We got up at 7am to start it all, for an 11am party. We worked ALL the way up to 11 to get things ready! Not sure if we're just inefficient or what, but it seemed like we just ran out of time to do everything, so we rushed getting things done up to 11. Then we enjoyed about the first 15-20 mins of greeting people and letting them see the house and backyard.

Then it was grilling time. I've never grilled for more than the three of us plus one guest. So now facing grilling for 20 people...yikes. So as a decision made way back, we decided to grab a big box of frozen Kunzler hot dogs and 2 boxes of Bubba Burgers from BJ's. So, first lesson learned...frozen hamburgers are easy to break off and throw on a grill...hot dogs not at all! I managed to "break" 2 or 3 off intact, then I had to run water over the whole package to get any more to thaw enough to seperate, and that took another 10 mins. Noah took a spill during this, so I ran to help him and we got him ice. So by the time I finally got everything ready to throw on the grill, it had pre-heated for about 20 mins. Uh oh...

So second lesson learned...Bubba Burgers must be pretty high fat content. As soon as I threw those things on the grill, LOTS of smoke started pouring out. If anyone took pictures of me during grilling, I must've looked like I'd had acid poured in my eyes. I couldn't see anything because of the smoke singing my eyeballs! I guess I'm just used to 80/20 or 93/7 ground beef fresh hamburgers. My first instinct was blaming the frozen hot dogs for causing the smoke, but it was definitley the effect of throwing 12 Bubba Burgers on the grill. I felt bad for anyone who had to walk past my towering inferno of a grill during this time. Quality wise, I think the Bubba Burgers dried out a bit more. That could've been because I was trying to juggle turning hot dogs really often, grill the burgers, and get the smoke out of my eyes at the same time. In hindsight, better to get the hot dogs done seperately of the burgers. Also better to focus on 3-6 burgers at a time, not 12.

But in the end, I fed everyone, we have leftovers, and no one complained about the food. Not sure if they were just being nice. If they are, please tell me, it won't hurt my feelings. I'm trying to work my way to becoming a grill master here. I also need to remember to clean the side of my grill, those Bubba Burgers left a TON of grease on the spatula, which was then transferred to the side pieces on the grill when I set the spatula down. Oh yeah, and I need to find the one hot dog that fell behind the grill before a ton of bugs take up residence on my porch.

In any case, a big step in my education of grilling.

Death of the Indie Kid's Dream...

I was inspired to write on this when I passed by the local Blockbuster...So, as I'm sure most of you know, Blockbuster hasn't been doing so well lately. Netflix has eaten them alive. The business model for Netflix took off like a rocket and Blockbuster just reacted too late. In fact, the last time I remember going to a Blockbuster was before we got OnDemand. And when we lost OnDemand, it made more sense to go with Netflix anyway. But to get back on point, the local Blockbusters in Westminster is shuttered with a sign out in front, saying some spiel about how you can still go online to Blockbuster's website to order movies and get them in the mail and stresses in big letters "WE ARE NOT CLOSING"

So the first thing that hit me was the irony of the statement. "We are not closing"...but this store is closed. The next thing that hit me was wondering who had to put that sign up. Was it a chump from Corporate (side note, I'M corporate, so I guess I would also be a chump from corporate) who was sent out to shut it down? Or was it the store manager, in his last act before locking the store down? (My last act would be raiding the good movies, games, and snacks). Thinking about if it was the manager, I started wondering why anyone would want to work at a Blockbuster store that's CURRENTLY open. You can see the writing on the wall...In a couple years, the only way that chain is going to stay alive is to go with online business or the gas station rental kiosks.

And that's what this whole post is about. No one can deny these kiosks work well, it's just the way the world is now. It's a lot easier to shop online during a lunch break, or while you're eating breakfast in the morning, or make a quick run to get snacks from the convenience store and pick out a movie for a weekend date night in. But it got me thinking about R&TT...that's Record and Tape Traders. When I was but a young lad in Catonsville, that used to be something to do on a day home. "Hey, going to go up to the Record and Tape Traders...what for? Nothing really, just want to browse, maybe listen to some CDs, soak up the aura" It wasn't just them, you could definitley find a local music store where you'd just go in to soak up the ambience, if you will. It's not like I spent hours and hours there, but I enjoyed going there to get music as opposed to an FYE or Circuit City (Avoiding the Walmart and Target references for something later) because the people there weren't just working a job, they were people that worked there because they loved music. You always felt like an FYE or Circuit City was more...generic?

So, now applying this Blockbuster thought to music stores...I can't name ANY music stores in Westminster. There's an instrument store on Main Street, but I've never seen any "local record shop" type stores. What we have really? Walmart, Target, FYE. And that's just how it is today. If you did a random poll, I bet you the #1 source of music sales would be "iTunes\Amazon\Website", #2 would be Target/Walmart/Best Buy/FYE "generic stores" types. This is, in my opinion, due to that same shift in technology. It's so much "Easier" and "convenient" to buy music online, slap it right on your iPod/iPhone/MP3 player, and go. And if you want to stick to those "crazy" antiques known as "Compact Discs", you just burn a disc on your computer, off and gone. And if you REALLY need that CD in your hands, you most likely will buy it online and ship it (If it's a hard find) or go to Target/Walmart to grab it (if it's popular and you need it now).

Growing up as a teenager, as a "indie kid", I always harbored a secret dream to work at R&TT. Because, in your head, you'd get paid for listening to and selling music all day. Could there be a cooler job? And then you'd start looking at the movies that made it look so cool...Empire Records (crazy things that happened to them aside), High Fidelity...Now, I never did end up there. I worked at Charlestown to get a scholarship, then worked at my college, which worked out good for my career now. And I knew people who did work at R&TT, and while I wouldn't say it was bad, it was probably NOT like Empire Records and High Fidelity, where you're cracking Top 5 lists all day or burning holes in a CD you didn't like to play. But, it was still kind've an iconic place to think of. I feel a little sad that "indie kids" who come up today have no real place to put that label on. I mean, dreaming or working at an FYE seems like dreaming to work at a grocery store, or a gas station...there's nothing SPECIAL about it. And I don't mean that as an insult to anyone who works at an FYE or grocery store or gas station. Job is a job and money is money. But it's not something you're generally going to brag about to your friends. I guess in today's music scene, kids are probably dreaming of working in a band, or with a band, or maybe as a sound engineer.

But for a minute, I'm going to hold a minute of silence, and pour a 40 (of milk, which I am pouring for Noah) on the sidewalk for what I'm going to call "The Death of the Local Record Shop". I don't really think they will go away entirely, what you'll probably see if vinyl shops and local CD stores get combined. So there will always be somewhere to go for that aura/ambience. But there won't necessarily be one in every town, so for the young indie kids out there, time to pick a new local haunt to dream about working at, if only for a little while.