LONG time, no see, part I - odds and ends

Well hello there friends,

So it's been a shade over five months since I posted, which is alternately incredible and kind of convenient because it creates a nice juxtaposition of posts where I can analyze my baseball picks now that the season is almost over.

So what have I been up to the past five months and why haven't I posted, you're wondering? Well, to make a long story short, I moved in with the girlfriend mid-March and things went from ok to disaster in about the time it takes you to read this sentence. In retrospect, I completely and utterly blew that move and I really have no good explanation for it. First time for everything, I guess. Anyways, during that time my computer wasn't hooked up so I haven't been on AIM since about April, nor have I gone into my blog since then (through my AIM profile). But I'm BACK! And by that I mean she's gone and I'm enjoying putting together my new, albeit now kind of expensive, bachelor pad.

Ok, back to analyzing the baseball picks:

AL East: Nice work on my part. I sort of missed the boat on how bad the Devil Rays are again, but called the division champ and wild card from this division. Yeah, like it was hard to pick the Red Sox and Yankees to make the playoffs.

AL Central: I don't know what happened to the Tigers, but the Indians have pretty much wrapped this division up. At least I had them second. Oh, and the White Sox turned out to be a complete disaster. I don't think anyone saw that coming.

AL West: Called all four spots perfectly. I think that deserves a little "Boo yah"

NL East: Ok, fine, I was wrong, the Mets are still the team to beat. The Phillies made a little run last week but look done now.

NL Central: Well, I got the top two teams right and still don't have any idea which one will win the division. I can't bear to see the Cardinals sneak in again with like 82 wins, so please let this not happen.

NL West: Oops, misfired on the Dodgers. Looks like the DBacks and Padres are going to end up division champ/wild card one way or the other.

On a random note, I won $495 last night! Colgate Dave is running a pool in which you're randomly selected teams and whoever scores each of 0, 1, 2, ... etc... 10 runs in a game exactly wins. Well, the first two times a team complete the task, no one owned them so Dave just kept rolling the pot over and it kept growing. One of my two teams was the Yankees, and going into last night they just needed the 3 - and although they probably should have scored about 8-10 runs in the game, they nailed it for me. It's the one and only time I've ever hoped Mariano Rivera wouldn't blow a save and let it go to extra innings.

Joined a co-ed softball team at work that has been lots of fun. We went 4-8 in the summer league, which the general consensus around the league was a good solid start for a first year team. We trimmed the roster a little bit and are starting to have the makeup of a pretty good team and I hope to do well in the fall. We won our first game this week. Unfortunately, during the summer season I pulled a hamstring when I crashed into somebody (they were standing on TOP of third base, idiots) and hurt something in the knee area probably while compensating for the other injury. The six weeks between seasons was juuuuuuuuuust enough time to heal and I felt good this week, which was encouraging. I hope to start running again soon - that plan originally formulated way back in April or May and hasn't come to fruition yet because of the injuries. Fingers crossed!

Final random thought: I had a post started ages ago that was about the New Seven Wonders of the World vote. I thought it was a kind of neat idea since most of the original ones don't exist anymore, and I was going to give my thoughts on what should win. Anyways, they were announced in July so I deleted that post's draft, but here are the winners if you missed it:

Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de Janeiro
The Colosseum, Rome
The Taj Majal, India
The Great Wall of China, China (sorry for pointing out the obvious)
Ancient city of Petra, Jordan
Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichen Itza, Mexico

Now, I don't know anything about the 5th and 7th one, but I'm sure they're cool. Here's my only problem with the new list, though - the great pyramids are the only original wonder that still exists; how could that NOT make the new list too??? Anyways, I'm just glad things like the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower didn't win - those might nice feats of engineering, but not great enough feats to make them "wonders."

Ok, that's all for the five month summary for the moment. Next up: FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS!