Thursday

Very tired this morning. M was up crying around midnight. He had received a cut on his finger yesterday evening and decided at midnight that he didn’t want the band-aid on his finger anymore.

Coffee, coffee, coffee…

Set out last night to change the spark plugs on Pauline’s Volvo. With this particular car, nothing is straightforward. Before I can even gain access to where the spark plugs are, I needed to remove 8 Torx screws that were holding down a plastic cover that sits on top of the engine block. Trying to negotiate my screwdriver around the hoses and metal bars that were in very inconvenient locations I managed to strip two of these screws (thus unable to remove them). This looks promising, but again, if I can’t get access to the screws it might be a lost cause.

And as if the Red Sox injury problems couldn’t get any worse (with Ortiz, Manny and Wily Mo back in Boston for medical reasons), it looks like pitcher Jon Lester is being tested for cancer. Puts the game in the proper perspective and I hope that he’s okay.

Last Night’s Draft

Given the crappy pick numbers I got, I think my draft went very well.

Round 1 (#8 Pick)
First 7 off the board: Alexander, LJ, LT2, Barber, P. Manning, R. Johnson, S. Jackson.
I could have had Portis here, but instead chose Steve Smith. This gives me the best receiver in the league, rather than the 6th best RB.

Round 2 (#3 Pick)
I took Carson Palmer here. I could have had Brady, but can’t go wrong with either choice. Now I have the best receiver and an elite QB.

Round 3 (#2 Pick)
I won’t be picking for a while and I still don’t have a RB, but I’m paying too high for an RB if I take one now. Instead I take Anquan Boldin here. Gonna have a little bye-week trouble at week 9, but Boldin is the best WR available and I’ll take him.

Round 4 (#9 Pick)
Time to grab a running back: Reuben Droughns. My team is starting to look a lot like my keeper team!

Round 5 (#9 Pick)
Surprised that he’s still on the board I take Brian Westbrook. My RB’s aren’t stellar, but they’re decent. My QB and WR corps is looking good.

Round 6 (#2 Pick)
I help offset my WR bye-week issue by drafting Javon Walker. I think he could be a breakout sleeper in Denver.

Round 7 (#8 Pick)
Since TE’s are so valuable, I’m very surprised that Heath Miller is still on the board, especially with two rabid Steeler fans in the draft. I grab him here.
Round 8 (#3 Pick)
Time to add a little depth to my RBs. I take Joseph Addai here. I’m not too happy about it, but the talent pool isn’t great here and I need to watch my bye weeks. I can always deal with this later… it’s not like I’m making Addai a starter. I’ll grab another RB next round. There’s a huge run on kickers going on right now, so no one will notice if I add depth to my RB/WR spots.

Round 9 (#7 Pick)
I take Marion Barber which could be a huge sleeper pick if Jones has problems.

Round 10 (#4 Pick)
Finishing out my WR corps with Michael Clayton.

Round 11 (#6 Pick)
Even with the huge run on kickers (currently a big run on defense going on) I’m able to snag David Akers here.

Round 12 (#5 Pick)
To complete my starting lineup I take the Baltimore DST here.

Round 13 (#6 Pick)
Backup quarterback time. I can’t bring myself to draft Favre, so I take Drew Brees and hope that he’ll provide a serviceable backup for me.

Round 14 (#5 Pick)
I grab Jerramy Stevens as a backup TE. I know he’s out until week 6 or so, but backup TE is the most worthless position in our league, so I really don’t sweat this one too much.

Round 15 (#7 Pick)
Ryan Longwell of Minnesota.

Round 16 (#4 Pick)
I complete my draft with the New England defense. I think they could be vastly underrated this year.

So all in all I’m pretty happy with my team. I always work the waiver wire pretty hard (as evidenced by fantasy baseball) anyway.

I’ve got blisters on my fingahs!!!

Picked up my acoustic last night and sat down for 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted practice for the first time in a long time. My fingers on my left hand had pretty much lost all of their callouses that I had accumulated over the years, so they’re a bit sore this morning.

My practice went like this:

1. I started out by doing some finger exercises that Terry taught me to help warm up. Starting on the 1st fret on the low E string I played the frets 1-2-3-4 using the corresponding fingers on my left hand. I would then shift over to the low A string and repeat. Once I finished on the high E string, I moved everything up one fret (frets 2-3-4-5) and came back across the neck. I did this until I got up to the 12th fret and then worked my way back down the neck.

   When moving up the neck, I kept finger pressure on the frets. When moving down the neck I lifted all fingers off before each note. I practiced this at a steady 60 bpm.

2. Next I worked on some interval training. I started on the low E string and found the C on that string and then played the 5th on the next string (in this case, the G on the A string) with my third finger, keeping my index finger on the C. Then I found the C on the A string with my index finger and played the 5th on the D string with my third finger. I progressed across the neck finding all of the C-G I-V intervals (I used my index finger and fourth finger for the intervals spanning the G and B strings). I then went back to the low E string and continued this exercise following the circle of fourths (F, then Bb, then Eb, etc.). Each time completely through the circle I increased the tempo. I started at 15 bpm and progressed up close to 60 bpm.
3. Lastly I worked on major scales using the C form from the C-A-G-E-D set of scale patterns. Keeping the root on the low E string I played all of the major scales using that form and again following the circle of fourths.

All in all, a pretty satisfying practice.

Back to Work

Back in the office this morning. Foot has made a great recovery. Staying off of it for a few days was exactly what it needed.

Yesterday we went out and purchased a computer desk for the basement so that the kids can have a place to use the computer (and we can close the doors and lock them when we don’t want the kids on the computer). Spent all afternoon/evening putting that beast together. Re-installed the 15GB hard drive into our old PC (I had been experimenting with Linux on it) but it’s not being detected properly. Didn’t feel like monkeying around with it last night so I just left it.

Friday

Still at home today. Not a huge change in my foot, but I think that staying off of it is definitely helping matters. Hopefully I’ll be up and about by Monday.

Pauline and M are out running errands so H and I are hanging out watching a movie.

Red Sox won last night for the second time in a row. Nice to have them back on the winning side of things. Beckett rebounded from his horrible start on Saturday by pitching six very effective innings before leaving the game in the seventh with a cut on his finger. Hopefully nothing serious, and hopefully it’s not a blister (he’s been known for having blister problems throughout his career).

Sayonara, Mouse

I got up out of bed long enough to take care of the mouse. Peanut Butter + Cheese + Trap = no more mouse.

I’ll probably set some more traps tonight, but I don’t want them set when the kids are up and about.

On the DL…

For the next day or two, I’m pretty much confined to being in bed resting my foot. Seeing as the most pain/discomfort happens when I walk, I need to stay off it and try to give it some time to heal. If it’s not better substantially by Monday I may need to schedule an appointment with my podiatrist. It feels like it’s tendon/ligament/muscle related as opposed to bone related.

Red Sox snapped their six game losing streak with a 5-4 victory over the Angels last night. But, since the Yankees and the White Sox also both won, Boston was not able to gain any ground in the AL East/Wild Card races respectively. 36 games left, Boston is 6 1/2 back of the Yankees and 4 back of the White Sox.

We’ve been plagued with mice off and on this year. In a 3 day span back in March I caught and killed 9 of them. This morning Pauline was getting breakfast for the kids and a mouse scooted across the kitchen floor and under the stove. She kept her composure (as to not flip out the kids) and calmly came up and told me. While she was doing this, the mouse ran across the floor and under the fridge, which both kids saw and began flipping out.

R.I.P. Mr. Spencer

I found out this evening that someone I knew has died. He and his wife used to live behind our house and his last name was Spencer, but I don’t remember his first name. I didn’t really know them too well, and they moved away a few years ago. I guess he was over feeding a neighbor’s dog (neighbor was out of town). After a while he still hadn’t come home and his wife, worried, went over to check on the situation. Turns out he had fallen down the stairs and was lying there dead.

For some reason, this hit me pretty hard, even though I barely knew him. R.I.P. Mr. Spencer.

My Left Foot (and I’m not talking about Daniel Day-Lewis)

Some backstory:

A year and a half ago I was in the basement putting a hose away. It was kind of dark and I was hurrying so I didn’t turn the light on (just had some natural light coming in through the window). As I was walking in the rear of the workshop area I stepped into… nothingness. Well, the nothingness turned out to be our sump pump, which did not have a cover at the time. My entire left leg up to the hip fell into the pit and I smashed my bare foot (again, genius move on my part) into the pump itself. The end result was a fractured 4th metatarsal + some tendon and ligament damage to my foot and ankle. Recovery was long and painful, but by the start of this year I was mostly pain free and walking normally again.

I returned to running at the end of March and over the next four months I had gradually been building up my distance, endurance and speed. Life was good.

Roughly three weeks ago I went for a 7 1/2 mile run, a distance that I had run before. Something was not right from the get-go and I felt some pain in my left foot. Sometimes when I start running, I have some pain, but usually after a mile or so it goes away, so I didn’t think too much of it. Well, the pain didn’t go away. Ever since then, my foot has continued to hurt, throb and be stiff. It varies on the exact location; sometimes the side of my foot hurts, other times its my ankle. The latest is it feels like a tendon is shifting across my foot bones every time I step. This is a painful and really uncomfortable sensation.

Today I’ve relegated myself to wearing the foot brace/supportive shoe that the podiatrist gave me back in 2005. I’ve taped up my foot the best that I can to try and immobilize it and will try to stay off it as much as possible. If this doesn’t work, then I’ve got no choice but to try and work from home the next day or two and stay off the foot completely.

Swept…

The Boston Massacre II.

That’s what the newspaper writers are calling it. Five games in four days and the Yankees won every one of them. The last two were especially difficult because they were in reach of Boston winning.

So where do the Sox go from here? There’s still roughly a quarter of the season left to play. They’re currently 6 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the AL East and 4 games behind the White Sox for the Wild Card. I would like to remain optimistic; Boston has been in this position before and has pulled it together. The question is, will the injuries coupled with the inexperience of the youngsters that have been thrust into the majors be too big of an obstacle to overcome?