I've got a new take on "Sunday at the Park"

It was a Chamber of Commerce Fall day in North Carolina, so after church I took Huey, Dewey, and Louie to the park. 5 minutes in, Ciera was complaining she didn't have anyone to play with, was bored, and asking if she could call her Mom to come get her.

After I spent several wasted breaths reminding her she WANTED to come and that I gave her ample opportunities to stay home and she STILL decided to come I gave up arguing, took out my phone, and took her picture.

3 minutes later she ran off to play with one of her friends from school who showed up with HER little brothers and 2 hours later she was arguing with me about having to go home.

I learned something from this discussion today.

The next 6 years are going to drive me straight to the nearest shrink I can find.

And in one of those "This could only happen to Rakes" moments?


His buddy from school showed up with two lightsabers to go between him, Rakes, and Trot.

If they paid me for saying "You just be a Storm Trooper and shoot him" I could have retired at 2:30 this afternoon.

The Week in Pictures

Monday started off with a year-end Soccer party for Rakes, a picture with coach Wendell, and Ciera and Rakes having a bang up time with the car racing games at the restaurant that night.

On Tuesday, Chase Utley tied the original jackass Reggie Jackson for the most Home Runs in a World Series with 5 and at the same time gave millions of us Yankee hating, upright walking, plus 70 IQ having humans hope that maybe, JUST maybe, the Phillies could pull off a miracle.

Much like a Chuck Norris kick to the marbles however, the best team money could buy finished off the Fightin' Phills in 6 games on Wednesday and celebrated with the richest dog pile in history. One can only hope that somewhere in the bottom of this celebration ARod was impaled with a cleat upon his money maker, ensuring the family line of blue lipped egomaniacs died on the pitchers mound at Yankee Stadium.

Thursday brought us a huge wake up call that baseball is really just a diversion from real life. 13 lives were lost at Ft. Hood, Texas in a senseless tragedy. I gave up trying to make sense of this kind of stuff a long time ago; all I know is this. The men and women who serve this great country by way of the military shouldn't have to worry about dying at the hands of a gun at home. Hopefully the powers that be will learn from this horrific incident and try to figure out a way to protect some of the last real hero's we have left.

Thankfully Friday returned us the land of the sublime when the Yankees had their victory parade, millions of unemployed Mensa graduates lined the streets of Manhattan, and the team with the biggest payroll in the HISTORY of sports was celebrated as a vaunted underdog. Don King had it right; Only in America.

Saturday consisted of me shucking and jiving my way through another day of sales while Ange and the kids travelled to my niece Hannah's 1st birthday. I'm happy to report nobody ended up in the hospital, Hannah destroyed her birthday cake, and Rakes somehow managed to not set the house on fire.

Finally, as the day drew to a close and the house settled down, I set about reading the boys their bedtime books. Rakes, although fading fast, managed to stay awake until the end.

Trot was an entirely different story.

In 15 years he'll be able to drive, vote, and join the Army.

God help us all.

It's Funny How Things Change

5 short years ago watching these dinks jump around hugging each other and grinning like morons, I'd have punched holes in my sheet rock, broken anything made of glass within a 3 mile radius and followed it up by punching myself in the cherries with an anvil.

Today? I'm actually pretty calm.

Amazing what two world championships plus the fact they spent the equivalent of the budget of Saudi Arabia over the past 9 years to win it. Truth be told? You spend $400 million dollars for 3 players? You'd better win or you look like the baseball version of Dan Snyder.

Look, they've got a good team. Yes, some of them took so many PED's they'll be dead before they are 50 and impotent before I finish this post, but they are what they are. They have the best closer of all time, a future Hall of Fame shortstop (who is more overrated than DeNiro at this point, but still a Hall of Famer), a guy who was cruising toward Cooperstown before admitting he was juiced up during his best years, and more guys with career years than you can shake a stick at.

But they did it. So I tip my cap, tell them all to bite my tweeter, and hope Theo is firmly ensconced in a top secret location trying to ensure this doesn't happen again next year. (Although the Jeremy Hermida acquisition earlier today isn't exactly making me tingle.)

Much to the chagrin of some, I'm not freaking out and curled up in the fetal position; it's baseball. Some years you win, some you don't. The team I love finished with the 3rd best record, made the playoffs, and just didn't get it done. There's always next year.

It really is amazing what winning it all does to one's perspective.

Some Days It Doesn't Pay To Get Out Of Bed.

Ange and I fussing, Rakes narrowly avoiding Red for his card home from school, and the Yankees currently beating the Phillies 7-1 in Game 6.

This picture of Trot is a perfect snapshot of my mood at the current moment.

When do pitchers and catchers report again?

Some things you just can't explain.

Par for the course, I have no idea what to write about tonight. Red Sox are playing golf, the kids have been relatively calm the last few days, and thanks to a travel day I can't even vent about how much it pains me to be watching Slappy playing in the World Series for the first time in his career.

So I've passed the last hour and a half watching "Law and Order" on USA Network and surfing the internet. And I've been thinking. (Which is always a dicey proposition.)

What I've come up with is pretty simple; if you're a parent, hug your kids. If you're married, tell your spouse you love 'em before you go to bed tonight.

And if you've got some issues, tell somebody before it's too late.

My brother, who teaches at a Christian school in Fayetteville, NC had to deal with this today.

I have no idea what would drive a man to this extreme and I don't really care to try and figure it out. All I know is life is too short and if I think about all this crap too long I'm pretty sure I'd go insane.

I'm Willing to do Whatever it Takes.

Tonight, I decided that sporting events such as the World Series were meaningless. Especially ones that include the Yankees.

So I decided not to watch any of the game and instead put on "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory" and didn't think twice about the game.

OK. I lied.

I did it out of desperation. Somewhere in the back of my demented mind I figured that MAYBE, if I didn't watch the game and instead watched some mindless sitcoms instead that somehow, someway the mojo would change.

And lo and behold it did. It's currently 6-2 Phillies (I never said I wouldn't flip back and forth during commercials. For God's sake, all I've watched is baseball for the last 6 months. You can't expect me to quit cold Turkey.)

I'm currently scouring the DirecTV guide for what is coming on Wednesday night. And I'd like to punch the creators of "LOST" and ABC square in the marbles for not scheduling any new shows on Wednesday until next year.

Dinks.

Just Another World Series Game

Judy Blume can go pound sand.

Dear God?

It's me. Ted.

It's 2-2 in game 4 of the World Series.

Can you please give CC a plague of locusts?

Thanks.