The Sad State of Print News....

......and of those who are hastening it's demise. I found out a couple of weeks ago, after nearly two years of buying my morning paper from Mustafa and Walid, full retail I might ad, that the Chronicle is actually hurting enough for circulation numbers, that their carriers now will enter a beehive apartment complex such as mine and trudge up the stairs to put a paper on my mat. After all this time of doing without, I was shocked at the first one that I brought in in it's plastic sleeve. It was a Tuesday edition, and while it was the Chronicle, if was smaller than I remember the sports section alone being, just 6-8 years ago. I tell you that to tell you this: It is still a traditional newspaper in every sense of the word, and that is a hell of a lot more than I can say for the Advocate. I find the print edition to be a complete embarrassment, compared to what I saw, as recently as 2006. It is poorly laid out, and so biased and one track minded in it's tone, that I am shocked it is still in circulation. I think that they are surviving simply due to the fact that "old habits die hard". That is the print edition. Their online edition, and "blogs" and forum, have become a complete free for all, with a few intelligent hangers on, diluted by a bevy of religious freaks, redneck philosophers, and just total morons stinking up the place. I will read it until the powers that be hopefully sell it to someone with some editorial aptitude and the ability to make it into a newspaper again. By the same token, I will not be surprised at the announcement that they are just closing their doors. Like I said, old habits die hard. Just ask the recurring "spotlight blogger"/editor...........

Crying In Carolina......

......for sure I miss my friends and my beautiful family in Texas, but no these tears are tears not of sadness, but of a reaction to Klingon pollen and histimines like I haven't experienced since moving from Seadrift to Austin. Funny, moving from Austin to Houston, cured me completely. Go figure. Maybe the exhaust fumes killed the allergens there.
From day one out here, my eyes have been weeping and my sinuses boiling. I have so far, resisted the obvious over the counter poisons, and going to the doctor for him to get his hand deeper into my pockets than it is over my blood pressure and cholesterol.......

A nice hotel desk clerk who moonlights as a nutritionist, recommended I try some of the local honey, made from local pollen by local bees, as a possible source of relief. Two doses in my diet today and so far, so good. I am prepared as a "plan B", in the event the honeybees bomb, to sample the local corn next. Best delivery system I have come up with so far, is trying the local moonshine......
My friend the nutritionist suggested mixing it with the honey, should I resort to such a "cure". My old friend the Grey-Beard Loon seems to be in agreement as well, that the "shine" is at least worth a try, if not actually a damned good plan......
So if you see me with a Mason Jar full of water...........

Lima Time! A Happy Memory of a Good Man

As much as a lot of celebrities, sports stars, and persons of note pass, and many times it turns out that their death was a result of their inability to control or deal with their their fame and fortune, there are those other tragic stories of a truly decent, gifted person, with role model stuff. Talent, charisma, and a gift of being able to impart that way of appreciating life and living it to the fullest, to others. Jose Lima was such a person, and he died this morning.
He passed away this morning at his home in California. What a heartbreaking piece of news. My condolences to Jose's family and friends. As one who loves the sport of baseball, I can say that there are few who measure up to the caliber of person that Jose Lima embodied. A truly gifted athlete, he was so much more as a person. He was the light of the Astros team, and a person who loved his life and lived it to the fullest. In addition to a talented baseball pitcher, he was a great dancer, and a talented singer in his own salsa band.
I am a father, and the one "Lima Time" moment that I will forever remember, was at at game in the Astrodome. It was before the start of the game, and Jose and some of the young PR girls were tossing soft Astros promotional "baseballs" into the crowd. My oldest son was maybe four at the time, and he ran from our seats down to the rail by the Astros bullpen along the first base line in the outfield and disappeared into the crow lining the rail, as they were down to one last ball - in Jose's hand, to toss into the crowd. I watched him look into the crowd of fans and kids lined up with outstretched hands. Then I saw his face light up with the sweetest big Lima smile that was so typical of Jose, then he walked to the railing and disappeared behind the crowd standing there. A couple of seconds later my little beaming, grinning Stephen came running back to our seats a couple of rows up, holding the ball the Jose handed to him. As I sit here with a tear on my cheek, after hearing the tragic news, I can safely say that that smile as he locked gazes with my little boy, and the one that he put on my boy's face that day, is the way I will forever remember Jose Lima. I am eternally grateful for the one little thing Jose did and for the influence that it had on myself, and most surely on my son. A truly wonderful soul. Rest in peace, Jose.

On Your Feet or On Your Knees.........

This.....



Plus this.....

Equals......

Probably the best cobbler I have made to date.

Oh, and this......



I started to name this "wish in one hand and scratch with the other....."
Likely no more berry picking this year. has anyone seen my wire brush?

Take Me Out......at the ballgame

I and my girl have watched this, and she being a recent, but rabid baseball fan/convert by osmosis, was quite tickled by this one. My gut reaction when I saw the replay,(and after realizing it wasn't Japanese ball) was "cool, but likely against the rules" ........apparently not, at least in that league, as it technically is not addressed as "running out of the baseline", I don't think, anyway. I suspect there will be a base running altitude ceiling considered by rule makers at some point as a result of this one. This could in fact, revolutionize the approach major league scouts take to their jobs. You might see a few scouts taking in some high school and NCAA track and field events in the not too distant future. In defense of the runner taking flight as opposed to tunneling in at home, the catcher had every opportunity to slap a tag on him on his final approach before landing. The runner just got the drop on him.

This all makes me reflect back on one night at a Little League game I played in Port O'Connor back in about '62. I was playing catcher, for our team, my dad being the manager. I guess to really make this a clearer picture for you, I need to remind you all that at age 11-13, there is a rather wide range in the sizes of bayrat ballplayers. Some being runts, just barely pushing 90-100lbs and not yet tall enough to go on certain rides at the carnival, while some others are pushing six feet and 175-180lbs, sporting some chin whiskers and a birds nest in their full cup, and looking big enough to take the helm of a dump truck without anyone giving them a second glance.

That said, in this particular game, yours truly was the diminutive catcher, awaiting, ball clamped firmly in mitt, the runner bearing down on him trying to score from third. For those unschooled here(please, the rest of you experts, bear with me), I will toss in some rules of baseball. You see, a base runner may when running to first base, slide(not advised-adds time to the equation), turn and round the base, or just blast through the base, turning out of the baseline into foul territory, optimizing his speed, and generally the preferred method on a close play. At second and third, depending on the situation, generally, the runner will either keep running, go in standing, or slide to avoid a tag, the notable exception, being the old "hard" slide to break up a double play at second base, which occasionally, results in some questionable "slides", and less frequently, fisticuffs, over a less than legal "slide".........which brings us back to home plate, and the real subject of this story. You see, at home, they added one more method of reaching that final, run scoring pay station. That being the mano a mano, runaway train, collision at the dish, with the intention of this little rule they apparently stole from schoolboy dodge ball, being to allow the runner to by sheer impact and brute force, take his best shot at separating the catcher from the baseball clamped in his mitt, whereby he will if successful, have scored a run.........
Okay, we just hit 88mph again, and the flux capacitor has done its magic, and we are back in 1962.......little pilot the catcher, clutching the ball looking at one Dennis Raby, looking for all the world, like a prize brangus from hell, snorting fire, bearing down on me from third base, as I dug in and squeezed the ball tighter.

They tell me I hung on to the ball almost until I hit the backstop..........
Next thing I remember, was opening my eyes while making those croaking sounds one makes after having the wind knocked out of them, looking up at Rocky, Jackie, Donald, and I swear, Alfred Hitchcock, and Dale Evans, with Lassie licking me in the face.
In retrospect, I wish now that Dennis had high hurdled me, but probably so do a lot of other folks who get to hear this story every time they are watching a game on TV with me, and there is a collision at the plate...........

A Man of Many Hats.....well, one or two, and a few ball caps

What started as a comment on my wall on another blog site, then noted by my "lady" mentioned a couple of lines down, is to be the subject of this blog. Someone observed the hat that I wear in the profile photo I have posted on both blogs and inquired as to its origin, current fate, and any "comical" stories????? about it. So here dear girl, is the "story you recommended I make it into.

While my day to day attire normally includes a gimme, bubba ball cap from Costa Rica, or South Padre Bank, or my black, jalapeno print cap from Marble Falls Marine, I do indeed still wear my "Pat Hat" as my lady refers to it, quite proudly, on many occasions from dining in or out with friends, to the occasional Jackson Browne, David Gray, or Jimmy Buffett concert. When I am not wearing it, it becomes the headwear for a wooden bear carved from a tree with a chainsaw, that I purchased from a roadside vendor in Colorado years back, that sits in a display case full of various Gulf rig coral, antique mike nelson scuba gear I have retired, various collectible musical instruments, antique glass insulators I unscrewed from pole lines I dismantled with the death of the railroad communications system many years ago, and a host of books and atlases, and last but not least, the one eared teddy bear my folks bought for me before I was born, almost sixty years ago. No, I don't think I have ever written a piece on that hat, just as I have never written a piece on my favorite old purple and black ski parka, or my last cool pair of shades I bought, when I could still see without prescription spectacles. I have had a few compliments on it, when on the town, but this is the first time anyone was ever really focused on it as an "inquiring mind", looking for some in depth info on it....... It was a gift from a dear friend who on occasion, wears one similar to it, and bought it for me after he saw them on some old Portuguese guys on a European vacation, and deemed it something that he thought I must have. He is an old wordsmith, and retired newspaperman, who has likely forgotten more about story telling, old time printing, journalism and newspaperin' than most modern "journalists" will ever learn. "

Houston Sports Venue Naming Rights 101

This one is probably just a product of too much time on my hands, but I couldn't help but think that maybe our local sports venues first shots at licensing their stadiums as far as naming rights, left a little to be desired.......well, since after the Astrodome anyway. It's not exactly like the Astros had anything to do with the demise of Enron, in allowing their beautiful ballpark at Union Station to be renamed "Enron Field", but history speaks for itself.........

Now we have the Rockets' new home........The Toyota Center. That does seem a fitting name for a building housing a sports franchise that obviously is in serious need of a recall though, doesn't it? While "Come see the home team floor it at the Toyota Center" would have been a cool promo it does appear that that this year's cagers apparently had their accelerator stuck on "idle".