Zon-ders

QotD: If I Had Guaranteed Success...

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could never fail? 
Submitted by BeckyPink. 

Buy winning lottery tickets.

QotD: Best Road Trip Ever

What was your favorite road-trip of all time? 
Submitted by bodhibound. 

A tie - as recently related in this space but probably missed by everyone due to Vox's weird habit of listing everything on the date they're started instead of the date they're actually posted:

 

http://doctorzon.vox.com/library/post/the-tripof-it.html

 

 

8 Random Things

 

Dave tagged me to do this, and me being the techno-Mo-ron that I am, he had to 'splain it to me what that meant.  So here goes....

1. 

QotD: Best Wizard, Hands Down

Who is your favorite wizard of all time?

My first reaction was Michael Jordan, but he never should have been a wizard.  So I guess I have to say Rip Hamilton.  Because his name is Rip.

QotD: [is this good?] - Posh & Becks

Posh and Becks have moved to Los Angeles: [is this good?]

 

Will there be dogfighting? 

Something to think about

The cast from the Harry Potter movies.  In addition to the main three characters, there are at least 6 or 8 recurring minor characters who have also appeared in all five films up to now...covering what, seven years?  They're all 17 or 18 by now, at the very least.

The question I have is....what are the odds that if this was a cast of American child actors, that 10 kids would have come this far without a single bit of trouble and not one rehab stint?

The Trip Redux

 

Recently, as most of my neighborhood is aware, I took the fam on a pretty special trip. 

Many years ago (1990), my roomates and I rented a van and drove on a baseball pilgrimmage.  We left Norwalk, Connecticut and drove south, then north, then west, then east,,,and at the end of it we had done the following:  we had seen eleven baseball games in ten days in nine cities.   Philly, Baltimore, Pittsbugh, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwakuee, Chicago, South Bend (minor league game), Chicago and Boston - a real doubleheader in Philly, and a two city, one day doubleheader where we got Milwaukee and Chicago in one day...it was, at the time, an amazing thing to pull off.  It was such a big deal, that for the rest of that year, I was continually invited to ballgames by people that I barely knew.  In that year I actually ended up seeing every american league team at least once. 

In addition, on that trip, one of the keys was that in those ten days, we only had a hotel room for two of them.  Most of the time we slept (or didn't) in the van.

One of the other really interesting parts of that original trip was that we were somehow able to either a) weasel, or b) beg our way actually into the stadium or even, amazingly, onto the field itself in a number of places.

Now, fast forward to 2007.  I now have four kids, a wife, and a dog, (who did not make the trip).  We planned this much less ambitiously, only trying to see four games in one week...but good god what a different world we live in.

First off....the planning.  When this was done in 1990, there was none of this...how do you say....internet.  As near as I can figure, the only way we were able to plan was the annual preseason USA Today "full season, every team" schedule.  Because I can't for the life of me figure out how else we'd have known when teams were going to be where we needed them to be when we needed them.

I do know that we left Norwalk with not a single game ticket.  We bought tickets for every game AT every game, the only exception being the day we saw a day game in Milwaukee followed by a night game in Chicago - we knew we'd miss the beginning of that second game, so we did call ticketmaster in Chicago, from Milwaukee, to pre-order tickets for that night's game.  And in every instance, we sat in not only the lower deck, but usually in very good seats.

In 2007, however, we had to obtain game tickets AND hotel rooms before we left the driveway.  Of course, this is much more easily accomplished using that there internet - we actually had tickets for every game, and hotel rooms in every city.  Granted, a lot of this has to do with having four kids involved - it gets harder to scalp six seats together, and the idea of sleeping in some rest area, even without the kids, is sortuva a terrifying idea in 2007...but it kinda takes a little of the luster out of the trip.

The other "lusterless" part is the stadiums themselves.  While all four of the stadiums that we went to in 2007 were damn near brandy new, they have become more destination than utilitarian.  Of the ten stadiums we visited in 1990, there are only two still standing.  The other eight have all been demolished and replaced by these state of the art "destinations".  I'm not saying this is a bad thing, as it does generate more interest in the game for people - at least more interest in going to a game - it may be as much for the game as it is for the garlic fries, microbrews and Primanti Bros. sandwiches...but the focus has become much less about baseball.

And whether its a result of the super special new parks, or of the new world we live in post 9/11, the idea that a couple of losers like us could just stroll into one of these parks and onto the field hours before the game...that idea is just plain silly.

There's more to say about this trip, and I'll add to it in coming days, but this is a post that I started writing nearly three weeks ago, and it's getting stale. 

To be continued..... 

QotD: How I Ended Up Here

Why do you live where you live?
Submitted by memtony.

place holder

QotD: I Was Wrong

How often are you wrong?  Do you find it difficult to admit it when you are? 
Submitted by emily ann.

I'm never, ever wrong.  If I was wrong, I'd freely admit it.  But that won't happen, since I'm never wrong.

QotD: Grown-Up Boot Camp

What are three things you want to learn, and three things you can teach others to do? 
Submitted by bookishbiker.

Jeez, a softball.

 

I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.