Push Me, Pullman

Special thanks to Doug Eddings, the home plate umpire for game 2 of the ALCS, for garnering support for my ESAU (Electronic Sensor Assisted Umpires) proposition. Boy, was that not a blunder and a half? Whether it touched the ground doesn't matter. What does matter is the wishy-washy indecisiveness of the home plate umpire for allowing the call to be changed after the inning was over. Let's say it did touch the ground and he called it strike three, but not out; there is no way in hell Pierzynski would have made it to first. I saw an interview with Eddings and surprise, surprise he stuck by the changed call. Not like he was going to change his mind on the call he initially didn't make. He pointed to a ball movement within the glove as prove it hit the dirt. Yeah, it couldn't be the ball settling into the webbing of the mitt, more likely it hit the ground without moving the dirt at all. But who are you going to believe; every sports commentator that only has the blown up slow-mode instant replay to go by or the umpire with everything to lose and the batter who benefited from the play? Anyway, speaking of bad home plate umpires, in game 1 of the NLCS Isringhausen could have rolled the ball across the plate for a strike. Every umpire has their zones, but you've got to be consistent. It looked like Tim McCClellan had to take a piss and wanted to hurry things up

Remember the crazy lady, Agne, from our apartment's office I told you about? Well, two weeks ago she posted a note on our door requesting that we pay $300 and neglected to mention the reason why we should pay this amount. I thought she had perhaps mistakenly taped it to the wrong door or made some error in her book keeping so I discarded the note. This week we got a second note that was a bit more descript claiming it was part of the sum of our monthly rent. It seemed odd that the check we had written would partially clear and partially bounce so I checked online and saw that the check had fully cleared. A bit annoyed, I took the note she had posted on the door and printed the cleared check upon it, wrote "PAYMENT MADE IN FULL!!!" at the top, and taped it to the office door. The following day while sitting in the living room I heard something at the door. I turned to see Agne speedily walking away. Before I could open the door to retrieve the note she was in her car and pulling out of the parking lot. The note stated the following: "Rent is due on the first of each month. When you moved in on the 19th you paid a full month's rent. The amount of $300 is what is still owed for the rest of this month's rent." Okay, first off as any faithful reader of this blog would know we moved in on the 15th. The 19th was the date the check I had printed on the note had cleared. Secondly, we've only been paying on the 15th because that's when she told us to make payments after inquiring why we had to pay the full amount for a half month to begin with. The next day Amanda wrote a check and slipped it into the deposit box along with a nasty note pointing out how immature she was being and how much easier the whole issue could have been resolved had she simply spoke with us in person.

You may have noticed the lack of photos with this entry. That’s because I am posting this from a computer at Amanda’s work. I’ll add them later, so if there are pictures rejoice in the knowledge that I am once again with computer and internet access at home. I am having the worst of luck with computers lately. On Tuesday Amanda's computer ceased to function. The computer guy we took it to said that the motherboard went bad; computer geek for it's "totaled". Before it died I managed to purchase our plane tickets for Thanksgiving. We'll be departing the evening of Friday, November 18th and arriving in Kansas City. Then our return flight will be from St. Louis on the morning of Friday, November 25th. Our itinerary for the time in-between will be something close to the following. Friday through Sunday we'll be in Columbia visiting friends and all the hotspots we once frequented. Then Monday morning we'll make for Campbell to visit with all three of my remaining immediate family before leaving on late Tuesday or early Wednesday. We'll then be in the Jackson/Cape Girardeau area enjoying the festivities with the in-laws until we leave early Friday morning. If you are going to be in the vicinity of any of these locals during the mentioned time periods and would like to request an audience with either Amanda or myself feel free to leave a comment, email, or call.