Category: Uncategorized

Rick “Cy Young” Porcello

Rick Porcello is a 20 game winner.

I owe him an apology.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2016/07/29/rick-porcello-goes-distance-win-over-angels/3zSza2D2Gxz4G2Hyh0jAhO/story.html

Last year the Red Sox signed Porcello to an absurdly huge contract that was way over his head and he was awful. He couldn’t get my grandmother out and she passed away 18 years ago.

When the 2016 season started I, like most Red Sox fans, expected more of the same. something happened on the way to last place though. Porcello wasn’t terrible. He started pitching really well and going very late into games. I thought it was a fluke. I jokingly called him Cy Young. Oh look, Cy Young Porcello made it into the seventh inning with the lead. Oh look, Cy Young Porcello made it into the eighth inning. Stuff like that. I thought it was a statistical anomaly. Even the worst players can go on hot streaks, right? Right?

Last night, pitching in Toronto against the team in which we are in a serious playoff race, Porcello won his 20th game of the season. He’s 20–3. 20 wins and three losses. Given his performance last season, that is freakin’ insanity.

I have to apologize to the guy. I thought he’d come back to Earth. Instead he just kept mowing down the competition. Now when I call him Cy Young it is because I feel he’s the man to beat in the Cy Young award discussion.

Congratulations, Rick Porcello. 20 game winner.

That’s One, Babie!

It’s official! I did not get shut out in the 50/90 Challenge this year!

Song idea #28 becomes completed song #1, and only two months late!

Written and recorded on my iPad on Monday and mixed on my iPad tonight. The guitars are my Les Paul.

One down, 49 to go (in 25 days, yeah right)!

Band Practice

Tonight was our first band practice in something like three weeks. We have a gig in a month but rehearsal time has been hard to come by.

The main focus right now is getting a handful of new songs up to speed. Some of them are songs the band played with their old guitar player, so they are only really new to me.

I expected us to be rusty and sloppy and not very good, but we played surprisingly well. It was pretty intense too and my finger tips are burning. My calluses were not as hard as they should be, and the strings were digging in to my skin something fierce. I need to practice at home more than I do.

We have until Saturday October 8th to get our collective shit together again. We will be ready.

Cardboard

We’ve had a weird year. Last fall I rented a dumpster and cleaned out the garage. It stayed clean until about Christmas and then the cardboard started accumulating. My wife bought some new computer monitors and build a new window box from scratch. More cardboard boxes. Where do they go? They go in the garage, of course. Piled up high. Then we did some of that amazon.com thing where you order dry goods in bulk and schedule deliveries? Do you have any idea how many cardboard boxes that requires?

There were so many boxes dumped into the garage that you couldn’t fit people. I had a path from the house to the front garage door, and another path to the back garage door. That was it. I couldn’t fit anything else in there.

Until today.

Today I started cleaning. I still have more to do, but all of that cardboard is gone. GONE, I TELL YOU! One more morning’s work and it will be as clean as it gets. We still won’t have room for a car, but the garage will be as cleaned out as possible.

Hallelujah!

Sunrise Chasing

Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts

I seriously want to go sunrise chasing this weekend but the damn weather isn’t going to cooperate. Salisbury Beach has mostly cloudy in the forecast for the next two days. If I go way up North to Old Orchard Beach it improves to partly cloudy, but that’s not good enough if I am going to drive an hour and a half.

Weather.com doesn’t have hourly forecasts for Monday morning yet, but that’s the day we’re supposed to get what’s left of Hurricane Hermine (or whatever it’s called). Maybe… maybe the storm off shore will be adequate compensation for not being able to see the sun through the clouds. Probably not. Waves are awesome, but it’s the sun breaking the water that I want.

Crud.