Month: October 2008

Spooky

This morning was a MMC morning. First up was breakfast at a place called Just Fresh in Martinez. Donna and I picked this place early this year when we were over that way on a Saturday. I guess we should have rechecked because the place looked awfully dark we we arrived 15 minutes before the scheduled meeting time. Walking up to the door we saw why, they had adjusted their Saturday opening time to 11:00AM. Fortunately for us there was a Sonic just across the parking lot and Miata folk are very flexible.

After breakfast one of our members had planned an excursion to nearby Edgefield. Stacey grew up there so knows all the cool places to visit. First stop was a first for our Miata Club, a graveyard. This one was behind the Edgefield First Baptist Church and is the final resting place of perhaps South Carolina’s most famous citizen, Strom Thurmond. From there we visited the Discover Center of the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor which turned out to be a nice little museum and well worth the visit. After there the Club headed over to visit an antebellum home, Oakley Park and Donna and I headed back to ASCO.

Today was the annual company Fun Day where the company hosts a hamburger & hot dog lunch on the front lawn. We also had an employee talent contest, a kids Halloween costume parade and a ton of door prizes. This year Donna and I both won a door prize, an umbrella and a bathroom scale, which doesn’t sound too exciting on the surface, but in years past we have usually given away what we’ve won to someone who might use them. As icing on the cake each employee (and their dependents) were give a Mega Pass to the Western Carolina State Fair that is right across the street from the plant.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 384

Do No Harm

Tonight we watched episode 20 which finishes disc 5, leaving only 4 episodes of Season 1 left. Off island in flashbacks, Jack gets married to a women he saved after a car accident and on island Jack tries to save a Lostie who is injured badly in a plane crash that wasn’t Flight 815. Definitely a 4 hankie episode; the wedding, a new romance blossoms, Boone dies & a baby is born.

If you follow sports even in the slightest you know what happened last night. If you don’t, a quick recap, The FRS were losing last nights ALCS game seven to nothing in the seventh inning with two outs (meaning they only had seven outs left) and they pulled it out winning 8-7 on a two out single in the bottom of the ninth. It was the second largest run deficit overcome in a playoff game. The other one didn’t really count because it happened nearly 80 years ago, so the only people who knew about were baseball statisticians and they had to look it up (and the only reason they looked it was because of this game.)

As I said last night I figured the FRS were out of it in the first inning when they were trailing 2 zip. I handed the remote to my wife in the 4th with them losing five to nothing. I checked just before my pre-bedtime shower and Tampa’s lead was up to seven. After the shower the Red Sox had broken through for 4 runs thanks in the most part to Big Papi’s 3 run homer. It was after 11:00 o’clock and even though my wife asked if I wanted to stay up to watch the end of the game, based on they way they had played tonight and in the series so far, I went to bed. I figured stick a fork in ’em, they’re done.

Today the sports world was all ga-ga over the comeback. There was tons of second guessing of the Rays manager; he should have left the starter in longer or he should have brought in so ‘n’ so to face that batter or whatever. He played it how he played it to get the team to where they are, one victory away from the first World Series in the team’s short and up ’til now, dismal, history. Pretty easy to second guess on the morning after isn’t. And just how many Major League Baseball games have you managed?

There was also plenty of negativity hurled at the fans at the stadium who were leaving after the middle of the seventh. The same went for the folks at home who turned off their TVs and radios (like me.) We were told we need to get off the bandwagon, turn in our Red Sox Nation membership cards and should never be allowed into Fenway Park again. Screw you. I’ll root for the team in the manner that got me here, watching them win and turning off the game if I think they are going to lose.

I wasn’t always able to turn away, but something happened in 2004, against all odds the Red Sox won a World Series. And to do it, they had to come from a 3 games to none deficit to the MFY in the League Championship Series. The fate of the world no longer rested on a victory in a playoff game or series, they had done it and I had reached a zen like level of fandom. If a game ran late I could just go to bed and find out the score in the morning. If they blew a lead and lost there was no more tossing and turning replaying the failure, as my head hit the pillow I was asleep. To quote the Great Guru of Baseball, “(If) It doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 383

Deus ex Machina

Show number nineteen feature John Locke in the flashbacks where we learn that he has very flaky parents that he never knew and probably now wishes he never did. On island Locke is frustrated in his attempt to open a strange hatch buried in the jungle that he uncovered a couple weeks ago and has so far kept secret.

Tonight is game 5 of the ALCS and the Red Sox have their backs against the wall trailing Tampa 3 games to 1. Past years playoff hero and star pitcher Curt Schilling, who is injured and hasn’t played at all this year, tossed out the ceremonial first pitch. Turning a possible inspirational moment into a feeling of dread, Curt, famous big league pitcher, bounced it up to the plate. He was 60′-6″ away and threw it all of 45 feet.

In the top of the first inning the thirteen trillion yen man walks the lead off hitter and the next guy up hits it into the monster seats. We have been playing ball for all of five minutes and the FRS are down 2 runs already. Here we go again…

I know it is early and the Sox are still an excellent team capable of coming back and winning this game and even the two following to advance to the World Series, but if you look at how it has gone so far, I’m thinking they are going to be watching the Rays and the Phillies play the those World Series games on TV like the rest of us (except for maybe in HD and on a lot bigger TV.)

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 382

Numbers

Episode #18 is Hurley-centric. We see him win the lottery and then have nothing but bad things happen to him. Through a convoluted route we learn that the numbers are more than likely the reason he is on the island. They are the reason the mysterious “French Chick” ended up on the island sixteen years ago as well. Up until now there have been a lot of little weird things going on on the island and they have seemed just that, but with this development it appears that something really big and metaphysical is happening here.

About a year ago I noticed some wear spots on the Emperor’s top and I thought it wouldn’t be long before we needed to buy a new one and have it installed. Managed to get another year out of it. This past Saturday when I got in the car I could see two pinholes of light coming through the top right where I had noticed the cloth had been worn. I thought for a while I would opt for a vinyl replacement top to save a couple hundred bucks, but decided to go with cloth again this time because of it’s longevity. On previous Miatas I’ve had vinyl and I seemed to have needed a new top about every three years. I use a top (see below.) The Emperor came with a cloth top and it has lasted nearly five.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 382

Lost In Translation

I had a different image picked for Episode #17, but I swapped to use this one because it is the pose that inspired McFarlane’s Series 2 “action figure” of Sun. The show’s flashback is more about the back story of our Korean couple. I think the show’s writers hit their stride with this episode, the on island story centered on the wife and her feelings while the off island stuff was more about the husband and what was going on in his head. But this married couple is comprised of two people who are not communicating with each other real well, so they don’t know that their problems are so similar that a hug, an apology and some honesty would make their marriage stronger, but instead they end up moving to separate on island camps. While the Sun and Jin story was the main focus of this episode, we also received a lot of interesting developments in a few of the other relationships.

I’m not watching the game, it is too horrific. I’m listening on the computer where it seems somewhat less painful. If the Rays score one more run here in the sixth inning the umpires will invoke the 10 run rule and award the game to Tampa. Once that happens we will have the Rays just where we want them, up 3 games to 1 and over confident. Last year in the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians we were behind 3 games to 1 before coming back to win and then going on to sweep the Rockies winning the World Series. In 2004 the FRS were down 3 games to none to the MFY before coming back and taking 4 straight to get to the World Series. Where they then swept the St. Louis Cardinals.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 382

Blame Me

I sensed it was over right after B.J. Upton hit the three run homer in the third inning. I turned the game off at the end of the 4th with Tampa Bay leading 5 to 0 to watch an old Law & Order rerun on TNT.

There is a comedian (I say comedian, I think he wants to be considered an impersonator, but of the numerous imitations he does, the only one I recognize is George W. Bush, and that is not very good) called Frank Something-or-other who has a show on TBS that is getting relentless promotion during the baseball playoffs on that network (so much so that in an effort to try and take the edge off, they even filmed a commercial with Frank threatening even more promos if we didn’t watch the show or whatever.) So what do you think happened during breaks of L & O on TNT? Right, I got a couple of Frank TV promos…sigh.

I checked in on the baseball game later via the web to see if I was correct in my gut feeling that the FRS were going to lose, hoping against hope that they had had an offensive explosion and I was way wrong. It didn’t happen, they were losing 9 to 1 in the ninth inning. The official Sox web site put the best positive spin on things they could by trumpeting the fact that the FRS had scored a run in the seventh — the Nation rejoices. Who are they fooling, the headline should have just said, “Red Sox Are Road Kill!”

You can blame me for the defeat though, it is all my fault. When I crossed paths with a fellow Red Sox fan (Hi Jerry) at work today I said, “We’re back in Fenway tonight, home cooking and lights-out Lester is on the mound, we can probably go ahead and chalk this one up in the win column.” We are both old-school Sox fans and are more used to having our hearts ripped out in game sevens than this whole World Series Champ thing, so he smiled, shook his head and replied, “I wish.” I knew the feeling, so volunteered, “Yeah, will probably get our asses whooped.”

Damn if it didn’t happen.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 382

Outlaws

We watched Episode #16 tonight instead of tomorrow because tomorrow the FRS play game three of the ALDS at 4:30 PM and if the game goes as long as last night’s it will be past my bedtime, leaving no time for TDTVS viewing. In the flashback we learn a lot about Sawyer’s motivation in the flashback and on island we learn that he is not smarter than your average boar.

In between this morning’s cloudy dampness and this evening’s rain we actually had a nice, albeit windy, day and after lunch instead of a bicycle ride around town to pay our bills (that windy thing) we walked.

Right now I’m couch-ridden with Endoftheweekenditis, but don’t worry about me, Dr. Gregory House is on the job.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 382