They were discussing players who had been popular both as Dodgers and Cubs, and Rick Sutcliffe's name came up. Pat Hughes mentioned seeing him pitch in the minors when he was first starting his baseball play-by-play career, and pointed out that he was the NL Rookie of the Year for the Dodgers in 1979.

Ron Santo, former Cubs third baseman and current Cubs color commentator, then asked this question:

"His first year in the majors, he was Rookie of the Year?"

As I understand it, it's Real Hard to win that award in your second year. Or third, for that matter.

I've prepared a small sketch illustrating my experience with the bassoon and "chicks."

You know what happens when you try to put like magnetic poles together.

I had about half the can left when I got home, and so I brought them into the house to share. In the bright lights of the kitchen I could see that they looked a little greasy. "Greasy? Cashews aren't greasy," I said to myself.

Katy checked the label and sure enough, Ralph's adds "peanut and/or cottonseed oil" to their canned cashews. Bingo. "Off flavor" = "and/or" oil. Gross.

I recommend not buying them - stick to the Trader Joe's cashews. All the delicious cashew taste without the "and/or" oil added in.

Yesterday I went to lunch at Wienerschnitzel with some coworkers to partake of their "5 chili dogs for 5 dollars" deal. They were no Sonic coneys but they weren't bad.

Mike wrote the whole thing up here. I could tell the story myself but he hits all the high points and includes many fine photos.

Enjoy!

TV Land's High School Reunion.

This show is a complete train wreck. The people are horrible to each other. The situations are ridiculous. The environment created by the show is so completely artificial it's not even funny.

But I can't look away! I've been watching it secretly for a few weeks. Now it's time to come clean.

I hope we can still be friends, "Lost" - and I'll still be watching you - but I've got a new BFFS. (Best Friend For Season.)

This year Katy ordered them some books from the latest Scholastic book order form to come home from school. You remember what I'm talking about, they're the same two-page foldout form of the lumpiest, cheapest paper available and printed with smeary half-dry ink they handed out Back In The Day (I'm sorry to tell you, however, that the fine periodical "Bananas" is no longer offered.)

Anyway, Katy ordered Cameron a book of Greek mythology. I thought this was kind of cool because one of my favorite library books when I was a kid was a large book on the same topic. I had it checked out of the library pretty much nonstop for several years. Perhaps this makes me a gigantic nerd (perhaps?) but believe you me, I caught every damn reference to Greek mythology in every bit of literature I ever read.

On the night before Valentine's I was helping Katy wrap the kids' presents. I cracked the cover of Cam's new book.

...Hey, this illustration looks familiar...

I flipped a few more pages

... That picture of Gaia looks familiar too - hey wait a minute how do you know it's Gaia just looking at the picture?

My hands keep flipping pages while my brain goes deep into the archives. The realization is slow in coming but all of a sudden HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE SAME EXACT BOOK I READ AS A KID ARE THOSE GOOSEBUMPS WHOA HOLY CRAP.

Talk about your weird associative memories.

Anyway, the next day I did a little research on the title - D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Reading the reviews on Amazon showed me that while I may be a mythology geek, I am by no means alone. If you want to introduce your kids to classic Greek literature and heroes, or you want a refresher yourself, take a look. And if you check it out from the Weatherford Public Library, well, there's more than just Greek history in that particular volume.

I volunteered to help with Saturday's arrival and Sunday's departure and got the plum job of Course Marshal. This sounds really important but basically amounts to standing in a driveway and not letting people out into the roadway while the race is passing. In return for this crucial service, I got a snappy orange long-sleeved t-shirt and two bottles of water.

Saturday I was posted on the back side of the finishing loop. I didn't have a camera with me but snapped these shots of the racers with my phone.

This is the six-man breakaway on their first lap. At this point they had a 1:45 lead on the pack and it looked like they might survive. They had been away most of the day, building a lead of around 7 minutes before the sprinters' teams started reeling them back in.

The peloton was relentless and caught them right before the last lap. Here they are coming in to the final 3 kilometers of Saturday's stage:

Today I had a driveway out in the sticks, about ten miles from the start. Here's a shot of the peloton zipping by.

I didn't really have any trouble keeping people out of the road - in fact the houses we were watching seemed deserted - but it was cool to see the riders and the fleet of support vehicles zip by.

I know what you're asking - "Brad, why didn't you bring a camera?" Well, the guy from the Tour who did our volunteer training must have said ten times "Leave your camera in your pocket." What can I say, I'm a good rule follower. This probably would have been sound advice had I been working a more crowded part of the race course, but since the fans I had to contend with were basically my fellow volunteers, it wasn't a big deal. EVERYBODY ELSE had a camera.

Oh well, it was still cool. And the phone cam shots turned out okay.

Best lines: "Brad?" (duh) and "Like the blacksmith to the forge, let iron sharpen iron"

Best lines: "The marathon was the hardest thing I've ever done" and "Feed the warrior 20 pounds!"

Long time readers will know that I have run hot and cold on Lance Armstrong. I am in absolute awe of his cycling ability, but after reading his book "It's Not About the Bike" I was less impressed with the man. However...

After he ran the New York marathon in 2006 he was quoted saying that it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Ever! Here's a guy who won seven consecutive Tours de France. My mind cannot even begin to fathom what riding two days of that race would be like. And here he is, saying that this thing that I have done compares to that. (Granted, his marathon times are in the neighborhood of 3 hours and I have never seen the sunny side of 4:30. Still.) To hear an elite athlete say that - well, it's gratifying. So he's back on my good guy list, sorta. Plus the commercials are hilarious.

January

Katy came with me to CES (thanks to Katy's mom for watching the kids). We walked the show floor together by day and lived it up like the rock stars we are by night. Okay, so if you don't believe that we did go and see Mamma Mia. And I bought my official Gadget of 2007 - an XM receiver/mp3 player. (Which I still love.)

February

We took a weekend trip to Yosemite and hit one of the few snowy weekends in the mountains. I got to show off my super-manly tire chain installation-fu and we had a great time playing in the snow. Claire and Cam also had their first experience skiing and snowboarding, respectively, at Badger Pass. The weather was not great - blowing snow - but we all had fun.

March

March was Cam's first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. Unfortunately Katy and I had tickets to see a matinee of Wicked with a group of friends that day. I tried to figure out a way to do both things but it just wasn't possible, and in the end I went with Katy to the show. I'll tell you though, it was killing me.

Before we left I gave Cam one of my Pinewood Derby medals (of course I knew where they were) and told him to put it in his pocket for good luck and as a reminder that I was thinking about him and the car we made together. The second we were out of the show I called home to see how it went.

Turned out that it was some good and some bad - he blew away the competition in his den but then in turn was blown away by the older kids' cars in the finals. Apparently there was some trouble with a wheel falling out between heats. (I'm sure that didn't have anything to do with the fact that I was gluing them in place approximately 30 seconds before we had to check in the car the day before...)

April and May

Katy and I turned 40 last year. We had a joint birthday party at a small bowling alley. We had a great time! Unfortunately we did not think to get a photograph of the two of us at said party. Whoops.

Here's a shot of the smoker's lounge, aka the sidewalk in front of the bowling alley:

June

Katy's folks celebrated 45 years of marriage this summer by taking us all on a cruise to Alaska. Cruising may not be for everybody but I certainly enjoyed myself. I really got into the swing of it with dinner - I quickly mastered the art of ordering a filet on the side along with whatever else I was having, and on the last night I ate seven lobster tails. It really wasn't my fault, the waiter just kept bringing them out.

We took a really cool side trip to see the Mendenhall Glacier. Wow. It really is a river of ice.

July

July found us in Oklahoma City for my baby sister's wedding. I got to walk her down the aisle, which meant that I enjoyed the reception knowing that it didn't matter if I spilled a bunch of food on my suit - it was rented! (Sadly all our pictures are blurry.)

August

I took the kids to their first MLB games this summer. Cameron is more of an NL guy, Claire is an Angels fan. We'll see who gets a jersey first...

The kids started 3rd grade. Holy smokes!

September

Katy came along on another trade show trip - this time to Amsterdam for IBC. We went a few days early and saw the sights of Amsterdam, including some really old churches, the Anne Frank house, lots of paintings, and loads and loads of charming architecture and friendly locals. (A HUGE thanks to Katy's mom for watching the kids for this trip, too. I think we've used up our babysitter/travel credits for a while.) Funniest moment - a waitress spilled a beer into my crotch and then embarrassed herself further by reflexively reaching out to dry it off. Free beers!

There are still a few windmills in Holland:

October

I finally got a correct diagnosis on a problem I'd been having with my Triumph since late spring. Sadly for my wallet, it needs transmission work. (What this really means is "replacement" because there's no way on earth I'm going to try to rebuild a transmission for a car that I actually intend to drive.) Parts were ordered, unfortunately until recently I've had very little time to work on it.

Wildfires swirled all around us but the worst we experienced was horrible air quality - the kids got a couple of "smoke days" off from school it was so bad.

November and December

Aren't you sick of reading this dreck yet?

I (heart) YRMOM

(California allows some custom characters on vanity plates - among them a heart.)

I see two interpretations here. One, he's trotting out a variant on the "Your mom" insult on everybody he drives by. Two, he is trying to convince his kids - in a really strange and disassociated way - that really, no, he loves their mom. That's weird either way you slice it.

This morning on the drive in I saw this one:

GLDR PLT

I immediately decided that the driver was a fan of Princess Bride and was referring to Prince Humperdink of Guilder's plans to kill Buttercup:

GuiLDeR PLoT

Upon further reflection I decided it was probably more likely that he was a GLiDeR PiLoT.

One of the moms on Claire's soccer team took a ton of great pictures of the team and was kind enough to share them - here's one of my favorites:

Go Claire!

I finally seem to have things straightened out. I promise at least one ridiculously long, poorly edited post - hopefully with pictures - to catch up a bit.