QOTD: "As a mental discipline, the reading of newspapers is hurtful. What can be worse for the mind than to think of forty things in ten minutes?" - Theodore Munger
Reading: Tom Miller, The Panama Hat Trail
Listening to: Rene Lacaille and Bob Brozman, Digdig
Decluttering accomplishments: I will unpack before I go to bed. Unfortunately, I also have to pack immediately after.
I haven't been able to update the past few days, as I was out of town. Just as a heads up, I probably won't be updating again until Monday night.
This trip was yet another business trip to Boulder. Actually, I hadn't been to Boulder since early March, though I've had three other business trips (and a couple of personal ones) in between. I took advantage of the timing of this trip to check off another ballpark Tuesday night. I figured it was less stressful to ride the bus to Coors Field than to deal with traffic and parking and all. Since I knew where the Louisville Park and Ride is, I used that one, rather than one of the two Boulder locations. The only catch was that they've blocked off various roads there and, when I got back, I got hopelessly turned around trying to get out of the lot and back to the Boulder Turnpike. I figured it out eventually, but it took me a while.
Anyway, the bus ride was fairly comfortable and was definitely the right way to do this, particularly as the round trip fare comes out as cheaper than parking at the stadium. Coors Field pretty much conforms to the new generation standard. So it's nice enough, but other than the purple line of seats indicating the mile-high mark, has nothing particularly distinctive. I added to my collection of baseball gimmes with a promotional lapel pin.
The Rockies were playing the San Diego Padres, so this qualified as a game where I didn't care about either team and could focus just on the play. I'd say the teams were evenly matched, but neither is particularly good. The first inning was nicely exciting with back to back home runs by Larry Walker and Todd Helton. Walker certainly was the eventual hero of the game, which zigzagged between the Rockies and Padres. I decided that the Rockies have the same sort of fan base that the Dodgers do. Namely, they arrive around the 3rd inning and leave around the 7th and are far more interested in having a few beers than in anything about the game. I had a particularly good seat, more or less behind home plate and only five rows back. I could have lived without the guy next to me using his cell phone to call everyone he and his girlfriend knew to tell them how good their tickets were.
One sort of unusual situation came about when Juan Pierre was batting with two out. I don't remember what the count was, nor do I remember who was on base, but the final out came because the base runner was caught stealing. It confused me for a minute when the next bottom of the next inning came and Juan Pierre was the first batter. But, it makes perfect sense, since he hadn't actually gotten out the inning before.
The other thing I wondered is whether anybody else thinks it's a strange coincidence that the Rockies have three players with the same first name batting sequentially. Todd is not a horribly unusual name, but it isn't a really common one, either.
In other baseball news, I had the following conversation this morning. I need to explain that Craig is an army lieutenant colonel who works on our program and is a fellow Red Sox fan, while Kevin is a program manager from our contractor. So the dialogue before this morning's meeting ran like this:
Craig (to me): I could have used your support yesterday.
Me (thinking he meant technical support): Oh? Regarding what?
Craig: We had an executive committee meeting last night and Kevin gave me a hard time about the Sox.
Me: Is he a Yankees fan?
Craig: Yes
Me: That lowers my confidence in his ability to manage the program.
While I'm still on the subject, tonight kicked off an important series. Fortunately, the Red Sox defeated the Source of All Evil in the Universe. I'm almost sorry I'm going to New York this weekend (taking my Mom to see The Producers on Broadway) and not to Boston where I could enjoy the rest of the series in person.
Just to prove that baseball isn't everything in my life, let me finish with some quick Boulder food pornography. I went to Full Moon Grill on Monday night, where I ate excellent ahi with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. The meal was a bit boozier than I intended, between their standard size glass of wine being 6 ounces (versus the usual 4) and having a coffee drink for dessert that included a lot more brandy and frangelico than I expected from the description. It's a good thing that I'd walked over, as I would not have been able to drive safely. Tuesday night was bad ballpark fast food, but I gave in to a craving for Vietnamese noodles on Wednesday night and was quite satisfied at Taste of Saigon, though it isn't quite as good as its previous incarnation, the name of which I could never remember. I satisfied another craving with chocolate hazelnut ice cream at Glacier, which is now officially the best ice cream place in Boulder. Officially because I say so.
I was also going to mention that the celebrity death of the week was Stephen Jay Gould, but I have almost nothing to say about him because I only ever read one of his books. He had been scheduled to be the keynote speaker one day at the National Storytelling Conference last summer, but had to cancel due to health problems. Oh, wait - I know what to say. The world has lost another Red Sox fan. Very sad.
Copyright 2002 Miriam H. Nadel