Assembling

Quite a busy Memorial Day weekend we had.

OSH was having their we-pay-the-sales-tax weekend, so we went over and bought a bunch of stuff. The big items were a patio furniture set (replacing our nearing-the-end chairs that came from the townhouse), and a small shed. That meant I spent a bunch of the day putting stuff together, but it’s all done now. We also picked up an umbrella for the patio, so now it’s looking pretty spiffy. Plus we bought some cheap solar lights to accent the back yard.

We tried putting together a couple of events this weekend, a poker game on Friday night, and a barbecue today, but didn’t get enough responses in time for either one. On the other hand, we did host dinner with four of our neighbors on Saturday, which was a lot of fun. Though we ended up with way too much food as usual during these parties.

Besides that, Friday night we went out to Indian food for dinner, had brunch in Campbell and did some shopping there. Plus we’ve watched the two Iron Man films which we hadn’t seen before. Good stuff – I’ll probably write more about them this week.

I’m pretty tired now, and I still have some work to do up in the study, but it’s a good tired. We got a lot done this weekend, and had fun, too.

The Avengers

If you, like me, don’t understand what all the fuss is over Joss Whedon, then be assured that his summer blockbuster film The Avengers (2012) will do nothing at all to enlighten you. It’s near the top end of summer action films, with plenty of action and witty dialogue, but no more than that. “What’s wrong with that?” you might ask. Nothing, really, but it means that it doesn’t challenge the current gold standard of superhero films, held by Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (both of which are more Christopher Nolan films than superhero films), and last year’s Captain America. While it’s better than, say, Independence Day, it’s a close relative of that film. If nothing else, this will guarantee it a lengthy run on commercial cable TV stations (as if its monstrous revenue this month wouldn’t do that).

Okay, to be brief about it: Action film, witty dialog, minimal characterization, nonsensical plot.

The plot is that the Asgardian demigod Loki (Tom Hiddleston, who as my girlfriend points out rather resembles Tim Lincecum) has allied himself with an alien race the Chitauri in order to procure for them the Tesseract (from the Captain America film, and known in the comics as the Cosmic Cube). He will use the Tesseract to allow them to invade Earth, and after they have the thing then he will be left to rule it, as a sort of vengeance against his brother, Thor (Chris Helmsworth).

He shows up and enslaves several humans, including the agent Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and escapes, leaving Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of the global peace agency SHIELD, to assemble a team of extraordinary people to oppose him. These include Captain America (Chris Evans), still adjusting to the 21st century after 75 years in suspended animation, Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor, the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and his alter-ego the Hulk. While Loki’s minions assemble a device to precipitate the alien invasion, Loki is captured and works on manipulating the team while in captivity.

The story pretends to be smarter than it is, with a vague notion of punch and counterpunch between Loki and Fury, and Banner, Stark and Cap all suspecting that Fury’s people are using the tesseract for less than noble means. But the plot is really just pretext for a lot of fighting (sometimes among the heroes, sometimes between heroes and villains), and if you think about it much at all, you realize it’s basically people running around without really accomplishing anything (and without anywhere near the panache of Doctor Who, which frequently employed the same approach back in the day).

The film has its good points. Chris Evans has enough weight to pull off being a leader among the rest of the cast, and Downey and Ruffalo are both quite good, especially when they’re appearing together. (I haven’t seen any of the Hulk or Iron Man films that predate this, but I don’t feel like I missed anything crucial.) The actions and special effects are both top-notch, as one expects from a top-tier summer blockbuster. The humor has its hits (the Hulk confronting Loki) and misses (a couple of jokes at Captain America’s expense, as well as Agent Coulson [Clark Gregg]); I suspect Whedon’s sense of humor is a big part of why people like his stuff, but I don’t think it’s any better than other near-the-top summer blockbuster films. Indeed, it often felt like Whedon was basically trying to write a James Bond film. Not a bad thing (I like most of the James Bond films), but nothing special.

You definitely don’t want to think about the mechanics of the plot, which basically involve a lot of stupidity on both sides: Fury being too clever by half in trying to assemble the team while keeping secrets from them, Loki keeping the heroes well appraised of his plan when he could have done nearly everything in secret (I guess one of the rules of the game is that gods never learn from their mistakes), bringing the Hulk onto the SHIELD helicarrier at all (there’s no particular reason anything they were doing needed to be done from a mobile base), and the heroes trying to shut down the Tesseract at the end (why not, I don’t know, cut the power?). And of course, in finest Star Trek: The Next Generation form, the bad guys have a single point of failure. (For a better story with a similar alien-invasion plot, check out Babylon 5: Thirdspace. It’s by no means perfect, but plotwise and thematically it’s steps up from this.)

I think the biggest frustration about the film for me was actually Scarlett Johansson, who I’m not a fan of. The Black Widow has some fairly meaty material here, but I don’t think Johansson really sells it. I wonder what someone like Cate Blanchett would have done in the role. (I think both Johansson and Renner really underplay their roles.)

I went into the film figuring if it was a film about Captain America managing to pull the team together against all odds, then it would be a good film, but if it was Joss Whedon and Robert Downey Jr being amusing then it wouldn’t. And weirdly, it was both. And neither. It didn’t have the heart or weight of Captain America, but you still root for the heroes putting aside their differences to get the job done, even though it’s all staged very haphazardly.

I never saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I did see episodes of Firefly (awful) and Dollhouse (dull), so after The Avengers I still don’t get what the fuss is about Joss Whedon. But I enjoy an action film from time to time, and after the success of this one I imagine we’ll get several sequels in the future. Honestly I’m more looking forward to the next Captain America film.

Oh, and there are two epilogues during the credits: The first one will mean nothing to anyone not familiar with the comics character who shows up, and the second one is not worth the wait.

Daytripper

I made the mistake of staying up late last night to read Daytripper, the graphic novel by twin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá. I only say “mistake” because Daytripper is a poignant, at times heart-wrenching story of a man’s life, so I was pretty wrung out by the time I finished it.

The man in question is Brás de Oliva Domingos, who is introduced to us as a 32-year-old obituary writer. This first chapter is very much the midpoint of Brás’ life: He has a girlfriend he loves very much, a best friend he hangs out with at and after work, and he’s the apple of his mother’s eye, but he also lives in the shadow of his father – a famous writer, and an emotionally distant man – and he’s struggling to find purpose in his own life. Each of the ten chapters of the book takes us into the past or the future from this point, to show us significant events in Brás’ life.

The structural conceit of the book is that each chapter ends with Brás’ death, and a brief obituary written about him. I found this to be the weakest part of the book, as it seemed to cheapen the emotions of what had gone before in the chapter, making it seem a little too sentimental, making each chapter feel needlessly tragic. Moreover, reading into the book I often wondered how Brás’ life as he lived it to the final chapter diverged from some of the situations where he died. Sometimes he dies through mere circumstance, but other times he or someone else makes decisions which must have gone differently for him to live to other chapters. Most significantly, what happens to his best friend Jorge, which chapter has a powerful conclusion, but which I doubt Brás could have left alone in the world where he survived, but he seems to have dropped it. Filling in the alternatives to those events would have at least given the gimmick more meaning.

That detail aside, the book’s strength is in fleshing out Brás’ life chapter by chapter, starting with his age 32, backing up to show what sort of a man he was to get to that point, and then stumbling forward into how he matures (with a brief aside to his childhood). While Daytripper has some overtones of magical realism, the story overall is more grounded, and the brothers do a wonderful job of painting a picture of the characters and their emotions. In particular we see Brás going from a wide-eyed innocent to a world-weary, almost defeated young man, to a more mature man shaping his own life. But we see all the frustration and joy he experiences along the way, and that’s where the book’s magic really comes from.

(His friend Jorge has a story arc which plays off of Brás’ own story, and which is nearly as powerful, considering he has much less screen time.)

But as with any story which follows a person’s life all the way through, the ending is melancholy (and punctuated with a moment of similar sadness at the end of each chapter). Though it’s to the creators’ credit that they build a character that we’re invested enough in for it to have so much of an impact. Especially when staying up late at night.

I’ve seen Moon and Bá’s art from time to time (notably on Matt Fraction’s Casanova, and Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy), but their work here is far better than I’ve seen before: The art is more detailed, the faces more individual, and the expressions more nuanced than I’ve seen from them before. (Their art styles are so similar I can’t tell who draws which story, and they’re only credited jointly.) Maybe they’ve just become better artists since that earlier work, or maybe they just put their all into this project of theirs.

While Daytripper left me feeling melancholy, and I thought it did have some storytelling flaws, it’s still a terrific graphic novel, and well worth your time and money.

Newton & Blackjack Update

Since I know people are interested, here’s the latest news on Newton and Blackjack:

Newton went in for a blood test yesterday, a month after his last one. I got the call from the vet this afternoon and she says all his blood work is basically the same as last month, which is good! His indicators are all in the normal range or very close to it. She wants him to continue on his current regimen of drugs and subcutaneous fluids (which is a bit of a bummer since I’d hoped we could cut back on a few of them) and we’ll re-check him in 3 months if he remains stable.

He’s also gained 0.4 lbs since last time, which means he’s up at least a pound since he had his hospital stay (to about 6.5 lbs). He’s also generally happy and has some more energy lately. On the downside, he threw up this morning and didn’t want to eat his wet cat food (which he gets to give him one of his drugs in powder form), but I’m hoping it’s just a bit of an upset tummy and nothing serious. (He wolfed down the food last night.)

Blackjack has been diagnosed by his vet as having Horner’s Syndrome, and has shown the first three symptoms on that page (Small pupil size, protrusion of the third eyelid, drooping of the upper eyelid) in his right eye. I’m pretty sure he can still see out of that eye, but I’m not an expert. Right now, the third eyelid is rarely protruding, which makes us feel a little better because it looks really weird. But the eye is half-closed most of the time, and he doesn’t seem able to fully close it, so it waters a lot sometimes (he shakes his head and tears fly around).

I think he’s a little frustrated by it, but he seems to be in pretty good spirits otherwise. He’s back to taking his steroid (prednisolone) every day now, I think to try to suppress whatever’s affecting the nerves to his eye. His body doesn’t seem to have gotten any worse, and he’s been more inquisitive and even more talkative over the last week. So we don’t really know how things will progress, but at least he’s stable and happy for now.

I guess it’s not fair to talk about Newton and Blackjack without mentioning Roulette. She’s been high-energy lately, running around the house and meowing as if she has spring fever or something. She’s delighted to have the windows open and the sun streaming in in the mornings. But I think she misses having someone to play with, since neither Newton nor Blackjack is really capable anymore (though Blackjack is occasionally interested and follows her around at a slower pace).

So we’re starting to think about getting some kittens. Going to five cats in our household seems like a lot – well, we used to have four, so it is a lot – but not knowing how much longer Blackjack and Newton will be around, we wonder whether we should get some playmates (and snooze-mates) for Roulette while she’s still young enough to adjust to them (and, as Debbi says, she kind of deserves it, given the hard sell she put Jefferson and Newton through to get them to accept her). We don’t have any immediate plans, but we’re thinking about it.

Impromptu Weekend

We had a pretty busy weekend lined up this past one, and then it got even busier with some sudden plans (“sudden plans”? Is that a thing?) that came up.

Saturday morning Debbi had an appointment with the hair stylist (on Saturday morning as the result of her schedule getting jumbled up during the previous week), so I spent the morning finishing up some work on the study (okay, mostly I was filing Magic cards, but also paying bills).

When she got back we went to lunch and then to the hardware store.

See, a couple of weeks ago I inadvertently fertilized part of the lawn. (Well, I was planting some new seed, with a mix that included mulch and fertilizer.) I noticed last week that that patch of lawn was growing much better than the rest of the lawn – which has gotten a bit brown despite all the rain – so I determined to fertilize the rest of it. I bought a fertilizing machine from OSH and spent some time on Saturday doing the lawn. I had to run back to OSH for more fertilizer, having probably over-fertilized part of the lawn (but it probably needed it). Whee! Now I’m trying to keep from checking the lawn every morning and night to see if it’s looking greener and lusher. 🙂

We also picked up some new solar lights, and a new hose and a box for it. Home improvement! Well, yard improvement.

(Wait until I buy a shed and see how much I write about that!)

As I was finishing up, I got a call from my friend Syd, who was in town for one night and was inviting some of his friends out for dinner. So on fairly short notice Debbi and I got our act together and joined them. It was good to see him, as I’ve missed him since he left.

This was in lieu of our usual Saturday plans of going to Cafe Borrone. We’ve been down on Borrone lately because the variety, prices and portion sizes of their entrees have all been going in the wrong directions, and they’ve eliminated some of our favorite desserts. So going elsewhere wasn’t unwelcome (we’d planned to have dinner elsewhere anyway). One of the desserts they’ve eliminated was the chocolate rum cake from The Prolific Oven, so after dinner we went to that establishment and got a couple of slices of cake. In theory I guess we could consider hanging out there on Saturday evening from time to time. (We’ve tried the coffee chops in downtown Mountain View, but they all tend to have bands on the weekend nights, which puts a damper on our desire for a quiet reading evening.)

Friday night we got an invitation from our friends Chad and Camille to visit on Sunday for swimming and a barbecue. So Sunday morning we went to the grocery store and Debbi made potato salad to bring. Chad and me and the kids spent, what, an hour or two? swimming in their pool, and then we had dinner. We hadn’t seen much of them since last year, since we’ve all been busy, and we had a great time. Camille tells us that their daughter has upgraded us from “friends of their parents” to “cousins”. 🙂

Monday was my and Debbi’s 11th dating anniversary, and we went out for our usual anniversary dinner. Where have the years gone?

Since then I’d like to say things have been quieter since then, but yesterday I biked to work for the first time this year, and boy did my butt hurt afterwards!

Dad Visits Our New Home

Dad came for a visit last week. (And it’s getting hard to come up with entry titles that are just variations on “A Visit From Dad”.) He flew in on Thursday and left on Wednesday. By this time we’ve gone to see most of the things in the Bay Area I know about, so it was a visit mostly of re-runs and hanging out, although he did have a couple of new things he wanted to see.

This is the first time he’s seen our new house, which we’ve now been in (hard as it is for us to believe) for 11 months. Mom saw it on her visit a year ago, but that was before we’d even closed (we were doing a walk-through with the seller the day she arrived), so it almost feels like it doesn’t count, since it was completely empty. Dad had to wait a little longer, but he got the full experience, since it’s well lived-in by now.

The day he arrived we walked down to the nearby Safeway which has a Starbucks in it, as he has been in the habit of walking out in the morning on his visits to get coffee, and his previous place, the 7-11 near our old home, is rather farther from the new place. I think he walked there every morning but two during his stay.

One place he wanted to visit was the campus of University of California – Santa Cruz, because it’s on a list he saw of the 10 most beautiful college campuses in the world (I think he saw this one). Although I’ve been to Santa Cruz many times, this was my first trip to UCSC.

I gotta say, it’s a very unfriendly campus for visitors. Apparently you are supposed to buy a parking pass to park most places on campus, which isn’t a bad thing, but they don’t tell you this. I saw no signs driving in to this effect, the booth where you buy the passes is not marked at all, and none of the parking lots we drove by or through have any indication that this is so. We only figured this out because most of the cars in one lot had things hanging from their rear mirrors, and we asked some people and they confirmed this. It’s like it’s a big trap to issue tickets to the unwary. Bastards.

We didn’t buy a pass but rather just drove around to see the place. Is it stunningly beautiful? It’s not bad; the buildings set in the redwood forest are pretty. The regions in the nearby fields look a little more generic. The architecture didn’t seem especially noteworthy. (Then again, Stanford is also on the list, and its campus has never impressed me either.) The campus is very spread out and I bet students spend a lot of time on buses or bikes to get from place to place.

We also visited the arboretum, which is quite impressive, large and varied. It’s the place I’d suggest visiting if you go to the campus for the scenery.

Saturday we drove to Livermore wine country, having lunch at Garre (nice restaurant, but their wines are not our thing), and then dropped by a couple of wineries for tastings. In the evening we went to a new restaurant that I discovered through a cow-orker, Bistro Vida, which we all enjoyed.

We came home from dinner to find that the power had gone out. We lit some candles and Debbi and I walked around the neighborhood a bit; it was a failure that covered several blocks, and it didn’t come back on until after 11, by which time we’d gone to bed. Our neighbor Juan said the power goes out from time to time – I think it only went out twice in the 10 years I was in my townhouse, so hopefully it won’t go out much more often than that! Apparently it was because of a equipment problems rather than due to the heat we were having on Saturday.

Sunday morning we went to the Moss Beach Distillery for their Sunday champagne brunch, and were pretty disappointed compared to earlier visits. They weren’t playing the classical music that Dad remarked on at his last visit, and worse, they had taken both french toast and pancakes off their brunch menu! Since I don’t eat seafood or egg dishes, that left hardly anything on the menu I would eat. Fortunately they were willing to make pancakes (for Dad) and french toast (for me) as a special order, but they were pretty ordinary compared to the more elaborate forms they used to have. I don’t know what they’re thinking, how can it be brunch without at least pancakes? I guess they’re trying to go more upscale? But they’re likely to lose me as a patron if this is the way it’s going to be. Pity.

Sunday evening we drove to the east bay to have dinner with my cousins, both of whom live out here, but neither of whom I’ve seen much of. Cousin L and her husband have a very nice house, and cousin K came from the city to meet with us. We had a good few hours visiting with them, and perhaps when their parents come out to visit next we’ll have a chance to meet them, too.

Monday we had a pretty quiet day, mostly driving around the south bay. Tuesday was a little more ambitious: We dropped Blackjack off at the vet about his eye, then went for breakfast, and finally up to San Francisco. We went to SF MOMA, which sure enough is an art museum. (I’m not really into art museums.) Then off to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream sundaes, and finally to Golden Gate Park. Strybing Arboretum – formerly one of my favorite place to wander around in the park – is now charging non-residents for admission. If nothing else that will eliminate any motivation I might have for donating to them.

Along the way we also watched some episodes of classic Doctor Who that I’d bought on DVD (used, to avoid the ridiculous prices the BBC charges for them): “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”, “Pyramids of Mars” and “Logopolis”. “Talons” was better than I’d remembered, while the other two were not as good (though still enjoyable). In particular “Pyramids” seemed to suffer from the limited (though very good) cast.

Wednesday it was a morning drive to drop Dad off at the airport, followed by meeting Debbi at her workplace for coffee, and then an afternoon of chores around the house. As always, it was a nice visit with Dad – and the cats enjoyed his company, too!

Blackjack’s Eye

Blackjack can’t catch a break with his illness, despite having responded to treatment quite well. This past week we noticed that one of his pupils was more dilated than the other, something Debbi says she’s noticed before. The next day we realized that it wasn’t that one eye was more dilated, but that the other eye was less dilated, and that his inner eyelid – the one that closes sideways from the side of his eye near his nose – was partly closed.

While he didn’t seem disturbed by it all – I did some informal tests and he can see out of both eyes – we contacted his vet who’s been treating him for his lymphoma, and she said this is an indication that something may be impinging on his optic nerve, that it may be related to his lymphoma, and that there may not be much we can do. But to keep an eye on him in case he develops symptoms that indicates it might be something else.

Other than some watering from his eye, he’s been behaving pretty normally, so we’re just keeping an eye on him for now.

It’s pretty frustrating, since he’s otherwise been showing signs of getting stronger and more stable lately, and an indication that things might be getting worse is pretty upsetting. But at least he’s still happy and comfortable. He’s been cleverly finding new places to sleep in the unusual heat we’ve had this weekend (he’s the only one of our cats who bothers to find cool places to sleep – Newton and Roulette seek out the heat).

Right now he’s lying on the couch next to me while we watch an old episode of Doctor Who. I think his watering eye bothers him from time to time and he shakes his head to clear it out. But otherwise he still seems pretty happy. Hopefully this will just be a cosmetic incident for some time to come.

He’s a sweet cat, and he really doesn’t deserve all this at such a young age.

A Week Under the Weather

So last Saturday Debbi and I started our weekend by going to Half Moon Bay (breakfast at the Main Street Grill!) and walking along the coast. When we got back, I went out and mowed the lawn for the first time this year. It took about an hour, because I bagged the grass rather the mulching it, since it had grown quite long in some places. I really should have mowed 2 weeks ago, but it’s rained the last 2 weekends.

By the time I finished and showered, I had the beginnings of congestion and a sore throat, harbinging four days of illness.

Sunday we tried to get a few things done, but we discovered (really, re-discovered) that many places are closed on Easter Sunday, so we didn’t make much headway. We did go across the street to visit our neighbors for their Easter party. By the time we finished, I was running out of energy, so we called it a day.

Monday morning I couldn’t see myself sitting at my desk all day, so I called in sick. Time was I would try to power through a cold, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned that it’s best to lie low early to knock the illness out of me. My cow-orkers appreciate me not coming in to make them ill, too.

Fortunately this was not as bad a cold as the one Debbi had for the better part of two weeks (which was so nasty that I kind of wondered if she caught two different colds), and I felt much better on Tuesday. Unfortunately I felt worse on Wednesday, mainly very congested and with a nasty cough. I didn’t realize until the afternoon that I really did feel worse, so I had taken my car in for maintenance and gone in to work. Oh well.

But I felt much better on Thursday, and have gotten better since then. So I seem to have finally shaken it.

On a happier note (well, for me, anyway), we had a series of showers and thunderstorms in the area this past week, which I enjoyed immensely. After a bone-dry winter, we’ve gotten a fair bit of rain over the last month, which we really needed, and I loved since it breaks up the otherwise eternal mild weather around here. I think the south bay is still below average for the year, but hopefully these storms have helped build up the snow packs in the mountains (melting snow is where most of our drinking water comes from).

After a long week, we now have a long list of chores to do at home and errands to run around town, partly in preparation for my Dad coming to visit soon. Fortuitously, we won’t have to go out in the rain to do them.

Fantasy Baseball 2012

2011 was a pretty frustrating fantasy baseball season for me: I drafted what I thought was a terrific team, and then got slammed by injuries and slumps (such as Albert Pujols’ ineffective-then-injured first half, Rafael Furcal having nothing left, and Chad Billingsley turning into a pumpkin) and struggled to cover for the pieces, ultimately finishing 8th out of 16 teams. On the bright side, finishing 8th gave me the first overall pick for 2012, so I decided to come back for my 20th year of fantasy baseball.

My keeper roster was tough to figure out, since Albert Pujols and Cliff Lee seemed clearly better than anyone else I had to keep, but they also used 3/4 of my keeper years. I considered not keeping Pujols and drafting him with the first pick, but I had trouble figuring out how to turn James Shields (or Ryan Zimmerman) + 5 more years into something equivalent to the guy I was planning to take, Roy Halladay. So ultimately I traded Lucas Duda and Jamile Weeks for a 3rd and a 7th round pick, and kept Pujols. I tried mightily to acquire enough years to keep Shields, but couldn’t do it, alas.

I went into the draft with two solid starters – Lee and Jordan Zimmermann – and with Halladay I figured I’d start working on hitters. A good strategy, since the pitching pool felt quite deep this year. But the hitting pool seemed so shallow that this year really tested my maxim that you can always draft hitting.

Here’s the team I drafted:

Pos Player Team Round/
Pick		 Age Comments
C Miguel Montero ARI 2/17 28 I took him in the 4th round last year, and he had a breakout season. I sure hope he can do it again.
1B Albert Pujols LAA Kept 32 Let’s see whether moving to the American League perks up his bat this year.
1B Ryan Howard PHI 14/209 32 Taking a gamble that he’ll play this year and hit a bit.
1B James Loney LAN 16/241 27
2B Neil Walker PIT Kept 26 Another guy I’m hoping will repeat his 2011.
3B Ian Stewart CHN 12/177 26 Whether he’s really my third baseman remains to be seen. I have other options as backups.
SS Jimmy Rollins PHI 4/64 33
OF Nick Markakis BAL 3/43 28 Another year, another weak outfield.
OF Josh Willingham MIN 7/97 33
OF Alfonso Soriano CHN 8/113 36 Drafted purely for his power.
C Tyler Flowers CHA 24/373 26 Marginal backup catcher, maybe Pierzynski will get hurt and he’ll break out.
C Gorman Erickson LAN 25/400 24 Might get called up if the Dodgers can’t stand their current options.
1B/3B Mat Gamel MIL 10/145 26 At least, I hope he plays enough – and plays well – to qualify at 1B this year.
2B/OF Howie Kendrick LAA 4/49 28
3B/OF Martin Prado ATL 7/107 28
SS Clint Barmes PIT 23/361 33 Another guy I just hope plays and hits some dingers.
SS Jonathan Villar HOU 22/348 21
SS/OF Grant Green OAK 25/393 24
OF Peter Bourjos LAA 18/273 25
OF Brett Jackson CHN Kept 23
OF Domingo Santana HOU 21/335 19
OF Michael Choice OAK 24/383 22
SP Roy Halladay PHI 1/1 34 I don’t think there was anyone else available who was clearly a better choice for the first overall pick this year.
SP Cliff Lee PHI Kept 32 I was surprised he fell to me with the 8th pick. Taking him was a no-brainer, as Halladay and Sabathia had already been picked.
SP Jordan Zimmermann WAS Kept 25
SP Matt Garza CHN 3/33 28
SP John Danks CHA 6/81 26
SP Ryan Dempster CHN 9/129 24 How did I end up drafting so many Cubs?
SP Brett Cecil TOR 19/289 25
SP Josh Tomlin CLE 20/305 27 There wasn’t much left in starting pitchers at this point.
SP Julio Teheran ATL Kept 21
SP Wily Peralta MIL 21/321 23
RP Addison Reed CHA 13/193 23
RP Grant Balfour OAK 15/225 34
RP Sergio Romo SFN 17/257 29

I’m definitely gambling on a few players coming through rather than washing out (Mat Gamel, for instance), and as often happens I hate my outfield. But it could be much worse, and I do have quality starting pitching. It’s not a world-beating team, but it has potential.

Gas?

I had a pretty rough night last night. The evening went fine, but…

Around 2:30 am I woke up and needed to pee. While doing my business in the bathroom, I reflected that I still have a mild pain in my neck, probably because the pinched nerve there still gets pinched from time to time. I imagine this will be an issue for the rest of my life, but it hasn’t been anywhere near as bad since I got it treated three years ago. However, it has been a little annoying recently. It might even be something unrelated – maybe my ergonomics are bad and I need to work on my seated posture (again). I dunno.

Anyway, as I was thinking about this, I started to feel kind of ill. I went back to bed, but soon felt even worse, and realized I was breaking out into a cold sweat. I got out of bed and my stomach felt really upset, so I lay down on the floor. Debbi woke up and asked if I felt okay, which I didn’t. Then I felt like I might throw up (maybe food poisoning again?), but I didn’t feel well enough to stand, so I crawled to the bathroom and lay there for, I don’t know how long, maybe 10-20 minutes. Debbi gave me a cold wash cloth which helped a bit. (The cats also came in to check me out, which didn’t really help.)

After a while, the pain went away, and thankfully I never threw up. I went back to bed, and still felt cold, so I bundled under all the covers. And fortunately I felt like a log for the rest of the night. (Debbi, unfortunately, did not, and she gets up a lot earlier than I do.)

Debbi conjectures that I had a bad case of gas in my stomach or elsewhere in my digestive tract, which if true would be a new one on me. We did have a dinner last night which included cabbage, which Debbi thought might have given me gas (apparently it can), although I didn’t have that problem when I ate even more cabbage at our pot luck dinner a couple of weekends ago. Debbi ate the same thing I did and didn’t have any problems.

I feel tired and a tad weak today. But that’s about all. Even my neck feels better! Hopefully it was just a flukey one-time thing.