New Shoes in the Rain

They did it.  Earlier than anyone thought they were capable.  The Cincinnati Reds are the CHAMPIONS of the National League's Central Division. Thank GOD! It's been difficult to watch this team play well most of the year, swoon a bit recently (only to have their archrival the St. Louis Cardinals swoon even more) and get tantalizingly close to their goal.....but not that quickly!  But they got there last night, in dramatic fashion with a walk-off home run by a homegrown player, Jay Bruce.  Fitting, I think. And I also think that a lot of teams don't really want to play the Redlegs in the postseason.  Why?  Here are a few reasons: 1.  Joey Votto is supernatural at the plate, and seems so often to come up with a big, run producing hit just when the Reds need it most. 2.  Defense...the Reds are at or near the top of the National League's standings when it comes to defense.  And you can certainly do yourself a lot of good when you catch ...

I work for a company that has a policy specifically written in reference to blogs and other online commenting mechanisms (Twitter and the like, I would think).  This policy expressly prohibits employees of the company from mentioning or speaking about the inner workings of the company on personally maintained weblogs or other online journals.  Funny, I find the very act of blogging to be a nice departure from thinking about work, so the last thing I'd want to do is blog about work..... And in the year-plus I've blogged here, I can honestly say it's been fun and a real pleasure and something of a creative release for me to post my thoughts and comments here, regardless of the limitations my company places on me and my fellow employees.  And I don't think I've yet posted anything just because I felt it was time to put up a new entry, or that I owed it to my readers (whomever and however many you are) to blog.  If you sense that to be happening, call me on it. I re...

This is a great time of year to be a sports fan....college and professional football are both underway with their new seasons, while major league baseball is heating up its various divisional races. All the more exciting for me this year, since my beloved Cincinnati Reds are closing in on their first divisional title in well over ten years, and my Kentucky Wildcats are now 3-0 on the football field.  That's the first time a new Kentucky football coach (Joe "Joker" Phillips) has started his tenure with three consecutive wins since the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant did so WAY back (NOTE:  most who are not Bryant historians or Kentucky football fans would not have known that the Bear began his collegiate coaching career at the University of Kentucky). Back to baseball for a moment....my son and I participated in an interesting phenomenon Thursday, as we partook of "all you can eat" seats at the Reds' Great American Ball Park.  Simple premise:  for ...

Funny, when I have a few odds and ends to post, I have the hardest time deciding what title to use for that particular post, and today's is no exception..... My Cincinnati Reds are not having much fun on their current business trip.  After winning many games in a row, they visited St. Louis Friday through Sunday and came away with one win.  Better than some trips, but I was hopeful that their play would be a little better.  But a win's a win, no matter how you slice it.  Then they traveled to Denver, a city near my heart because our daughter and her family live in that area, to face the Colorado Rockies for a four game set.  No better.  The Reds have not won in Colorado since 2008, and the futility continues.  Most of the Reds regular players aren't hitting, except all-universe first baseman Joey Votto (so much for the Sports Illustrated jinx), and the pitching has been less than great, too. One more game out yonder, then the boys head home for the h...

Morning, all.....just a few comments about this and that today.....but mostly revolving around the recently completed three-day Labor Day weekend, the unofficial signal that summer is over, for all intents and purposes. Our weekend started with a nice dinner out at a favorite restaurant, and a trip to Target that didn't blow our budget (always a nice surprise).  Then on Saturday, Kentucky played football at the University of Louisville's newly expanded stadium.  Both teams had new coaches on display and the weather was absolutely perfect--mid '70's, breezy and sunny.  In other words, the kind of day you want to bottle and save for later.  Anyway, Kentucky played masterfully during the first half, not so much the second and came out on top. Sunday we had our granddaughter for the afternoon, then her parents had dinner with us when they came to retrieve her.  Again, another nearly perfect day weatherwise, so great weather for grilling. Yesterday I was schedu...

In my travels for my job I often find it interesting and a pleasant way to pass the time when I meet new people.  And I'm not one of those who interrogates his seatmate every time I get on a plane....I've been victimized by enough of those to last me a lifetime.  But I just returned home from a business trip and found a couple of the people I encountered to be interesting. For example, on my flight home the lady who was scheduled to sit with me spoke up, politely, and asked if Lexington was home for me.  I answered that it was, and then asked her the same question.  "Louisville," she responded, and that led to about fifteen minutes of chatting about airports, travel, jobs, etc.  Turns out this lady is the mother of three, ranging in age from 17 to 9, was in the ministry (!) for seven years, and now is in marketing for some sort of collective buying cooperative that sells primarily to non-profits and church-related entities.  And we also established that s...

It's Friday, and we're heading toward the Labor Day weekend, slowly but surely.  Time for a bit of a brain dump with some random comments about random subjects. Has it been hot where you live?  Excuse me, I meant to say "HOT."  This has been a summer of ridiculous temperature extremes in central Kentucky, and I know from traveling it's been that way in a lot of places.  You know it's hot when dedicated golfers elect not to play on a Saturday. For the first time in a number of years, the Reds are in serious contention to make it to post-season play (we used to simply say "the playoffs" but now there's more than one round of playoff series leading to the World Series), so baseball has a different significance for me this year than in years past.  Usually, at this point, I'm interested to see the prospects that the Reds have promoted to the big club to see how they perform at the major league level, as they're often hopelessly out of the...