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June 29, 2006
sweet sweet tiller
I am in Pittsburgh. And, for those who know I continue to exist based exclusively on the appearance of new material on this blog, be assured I am in fact still around.
I've never been to Pittsburgh before. It has a lot of hills. Quite pretty. We went to PNC Park and saw the Pirates take on the White Sox. Fun game. Very cool park. The design of the park is quite modern in appearance. However, the field itself is not. None of those crazy features that you'd find in places like Houston. We had great seats -- right behind home plate. And Jim Thome hit the longest home run I've ever witnessed. Two bounces and it splashed into the Alleghany River.
Going to a non-Cubs game made me realize how truly terrible the Cubs' offense is this year. Yes, I know they haven't had all their weapons in the lineup at the same time since April, but still. They're terrible. They get guys on second and third with nobody out and can't manage to push one run across. That's just terrible. And I don't even want to talk about their pitching. There is no excuse -- none -- for paying $100 million dollars to a team with a .375 win percentage. Man, I sure hope they make it back up to .375.
I realized how awful my Cubs have been this year by watching two teams that play better than them -- and one of them was the lowly Pirates. I tell you this -- not one ground ball went in between two statuesque infielders, as happened in a Cubs game a few days ago. There is no excuse for that sort of nonsense.
In other news, I have no other news. Summer is a crazy time that goes by much faster than any other time of the year. I'm teaching summer school, which is excellent. It's a pretty straightforward assignment. I get paid, but I only work til 11:30 every day. Who could turn that down?
A few months ago, I planted sod. Perhaps I mentioned this. If I did, I don't care. I'll say it again. I planted sod. Not a lot of sod. And not by myself. But it worked. And it's growing. We have a thin strip of land between the street and the sidewalk in front of the building. Until a few weeks ago, it consisted of a collection of dead plants, rocks, and more dead plants. Another guy in the building and I spent one weekend pulling all the dead stuff up. The following weekend, we tilled the soil and laid the sod. Tilling soil is excellent. I rented a gas-powered tiller from Home Depot for the project. Just pull the cord, and till baby till. The only part better than the tilling would have to be the immediacy with which the results of this work can be seen. On the day we finished, it looked like we had the nicest, greenest lawn I'd ever seen. And I must say it's survived pretty darn well. Feelings of accomplishment are hard to come by. I take what I can get.
Posted by ben at 5:07 PM | Comments (1)