Back from my second annual Ty/Da Baseball Vacation: July 28 - Aug 3 in Seattle and SFO with 3 ballgames in 6 days. Excellent!
  • Seattle 3, Toronto 2 (boxscore) - Our game in Seattle coincided with Seattle's hottest day ever; the temp hit 103 (source). My guy Halladay lost, but he pitched OK. Ty's guy Jose Lopez had a solo dinger. Seattle's Safeco Stadium was a beauty, 5 bill-stars. The retractable roof was open for the warm goodness of our game. And for the record, 100 in Seattle feels better than 90 degrees over here in the greater Chicagoland area.
  • Oakland 8, Toronto 5 (boxscore) - Oakland stadium is a flippin' dump, perfectly set in post-apocalyptic surroundings including warehouses, burned out buildings and acres of weed-jutting asphalt and gravel. Second-worst stadium ever to Shea Stadium. Ty got a couple autographs (Adam Kennedy and some other Athletic) and we snarfed a couple foul balls from our front row seats. Excellent. Ty's guy Andrew Bailey got the save.
  • SFO 7, Philly 3 (boxscore) - SFO Stadium is very nice... a little mall-y for my taste, but still very nice. We saw the game with Janny and her family and Verb. It was my guy Pablo Sandoval T-shirt day. Too cool.
  • In some wonderful kismet, Ty was talking to a guy (Ty's always talking to a guy/girl, he he) on the subway home from the Oakland game, and after a while he told us that he was Blue Jay All-Star Aaron Hill's father. The guy was super-nice and beaming about his son (duh).
  • We sat in some version of the front row for all 3 games. Unlike the Cub, however, all tickets cost less than a hundo. You can barely get into the bleachers at Wrigley for that price these days.
QOTD
"You're washed up, Junior!"
- Blue Jay fan taunt right before Griffey's game-winning double in the 7th
I looked back at the guy and laughed after Junior's mash. In my younger, more testosterone-filled days, I would have commented on the status of Canada in relation to being "washed up" or irrelevant, but I let it lie.
Junior 2-run double for the Mariner "W"

Book: "The Shining" by Stephen King
Review: 4 bill-stars (out of 5)... excellent!

I was really shocked at how different the book was from the movie; the book is much more interesting. The kid is half the focus of the book, not just a throw-in like the movie. Also, the father's (Jack Nicholson) nuttiness is more gripping in the book because of it's base in reality: abused as a child, alcoholism, career failure, marital strain, etc.

This was a great vacation read, and thanks to Mozy for the pointer.
I'm into "Carrie" now, and it's going better than the movie as well. Stay tuned.
play ball... yow, bill

PS - A quick politics wrap from (super-hot) Sarah Palin.

QOTD2
"Last state twitter. Thank you Alaska! I love you. God bless Alaska. God bless the U.S.A."
- July 26, Sarah Palin's last twitter as gov of AK (twitter link)

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