Dry Tortugas pic featured

One of my photos from the Dry Tortugas is featured in a story at Florida Rambler.

Cautious Optimism for Pirates Pitching

We’re only 9 games into the 2012 season and the Pirates are only 3-6, but I think there are reasons for cautious optimism. The pitching, in particular, has been stellar. All 9 games have been close. Pirates starting pitchers have thrown a quality start, or very very near a quality start, in every single game. And the bullpen has the lowest earned run average in all of baseball at the moment. Check out the stats.

Game 1: Eric Bedard, 7 innings, 1 earned run (vs. Roy Hallady, Cy Young winner 2003 and 2010)
Game 2: Jeff Karstens, 6 innings, 1 earned run (vs. Cliff Lee, Cy Young winner 2008)
Game 3: James McDonald, 6 innings, 2 earned runs
Game 4: Kevin Correia, 6 innings, 1 earned run (vs. Clayton Kershaw, Cy Young winner 2011)
Game 5: Eric Bedard, 5 innings, 2 earned runs
Game 6: Jeff Karstens, 5 innings, 3 earned runs
Game 7: James McDonald, 5.2 innings, 3 earned runs
Game 8: Charlie Morton, 5 innings, 3 earned runs (vs. Barry Zito, Cy Young winner 2002)
Game 9: Kevin Correia, 6 innings, 1 earned run
BULLPEN: 25.1 innings, 5 earned runs (1.78 ERA – Best in all of baseball)

And all that without A.J. Burnett, who might be their best starter. And you’ll also note in 4 starts the Pirates have faced Cy Young Award winners. A 3-6 start against this schedule is not too bad in my eyes. I’m not quite ready to proclaim they’ll finally have a winning season in 2012, but there’s no doubt the Pirates are heading in the right direction.

Boston Ironsides vs. Framingham Exiles

Boston Ironsides vs. Framingham Exiles at Moakley Park, Boston, MA April 14, 2012. More on my Flickr photo stream.

relapse vs. remission

This is both a funny and embarrassing error by CNN.

“CORRECTION: We originally stated that Carrie Fisher was “in relapse” for drugs and alcohol abuse. Thankfully, we meant “remission.” The error has now been corrected.”

Splash from the past

Whilst restoring blog post photos from the archives, I ran across the splash page images I used on Leather Egg in 2004 and 2005. They included some of my photos as well as some political and pop culture events of the timeframe. I no longer have the text that went with them, but for archival purposes I’ve posted the images here in gallery format.

blogdust

There is a pulse after all. I’m dusting off the blog, and just finished restoring all the photos in the archives. I know there’s still a ton of broken links, but I’ll get to them one of these days. This weekend I’m fighting off a cold, and doing mindless stuff like this makes me feel less sick, I guess. Getting all the old photos back was a fun trip down memory lane to the early days — back when self-publishing was more fun and nobody called these website thingies “blogs.”

Peonies and the Park

Last year we planted an ornamental onion and two peonies in a raised planter smack in the middle of our ferns. The onion bloomed last year, but the peonies did not. This year, reverse that by two-thirds. The onion is gone, and one of the two peonies sent up around 8 flowers. Also added to Flickr photostream is this panorama of Central Park that I took from the roof garden at the Met. I used the Panorama app on my iPhone, and the phone literally became warm while it was processing this one, but it did a fantastic job. Click for BIG full-sized version. This was all the Panorama app – I did no post-processing.

In the Same (Sunken) Boat with the Steelers

The 2008 season was great for both of my football passions — the Steelers won the Super Bowl, and my fantasy team won the Fantasy Bowl.  And as defending champs, both passions shared the same fate for the 2009 season which ended Sunday night — missed the playoffs.

My fantasy team was out after week 14, finishing with a 7-7 record despite having (at the time) the 3rd highest points in the league. I finished with the 4th highest points in the league and will get an award for top points of non-playoff teams. Matt Forte and Greg Jennings were big disappointments this year, and the rest of my stud players (Tom Brady, MoJo Drew, Roddy White, Derrick Mason) were all wildly inconsistent.

As for the Steelers, this was not a surprise. They won Sunday but didn’t get the help from other teams that they needed. Their special teams were atrocious for big sections of the year, and you can’t lose 5 in a row (including a pair of 27-24 embarrassments to Oakland and Kansas City) and expect to get the chance to defend your title.

The NFL playoffs have lost a lot of my interest. And with Wes Welker’s season-ending injury, I’ll be surprised to see the Patriots go far. Time to focus on the Penguins and look forward to spring training.

Rest in Peace, TheBrad

Brad Graham was an inspiration to me, as I’m sure he was to many bloggers who’ve been around for the long haul. He’s been on my bookmarks list forever, even though he hasn’t written regularly on his blog in a few years (I know the feeling). It’s a real shock to learn of Brad’s death that was reported today. His Facebook page, which he last updated New Year’s Eve, is now an outpouring of love, remembrances, and the grief of his friends.

Just a few days ago, I retweeted one his Twitter posts. It was just a quick yet clever observation that showed his abundant wit: “iSlate = is late.” It’s pretty damn funny if you’re a Mac fanboy (as Brad was), and I thought it was another of those “perfect Brad” tweets. Unfortunately, it was also one of his last.

For many years, Brad’s blog was always THE FIRST STOP on April Fools Days when you fired up your web browser, and he never failed to deliver a temporary re-branding that left the reader in stitches. We won’t get to break bread with Brad ever again, but going forward I’ll have a nip and a toast every April 1st to remember TheBrad.

Roots

Last July I traveled back to my parents’ place with Marlin as part of a long weekend where we visited friends in State College for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and then continued on to Clarion County where my dad’s family (Yeany) was having a family reunion. It’s been quite a few years since I attended a family reunion — it’s not a quick drive from Boston to central PA. But with the death of my grandfather last year (who was the last of 8 children in his family), I wanted to make better effort at remaining in touch with some of the extended family members.

We took a few side trips during the family reunion — a tour of my cousin’s boarding facilities for her kennel business, a tractor ride around the farm’s perimeter (photos here and here), and a visit to the cemetery. In this one small cemetery on a hill in village called Shannondale, I can visit the graves of my grandfather, great-grandfather, great(x3) grandfather, and great(x4) grandfather — whose original and replacement gravestones are pictured here.

I’m not sure about the grave location for great (x2) grandfather … I need to dig out my family tree and give dad or grandma a call to figure that one out.