hello sunshine

yesterday was a glorious autumn day in the great pacific northwest but today is a stinker, cold and wet. but all is not lost, the weatherman tells us it will be warm and sunny for the next few days after this little bump in the road. it might just be the last opportunity to wash the bed sheets and let them soak up the sun for a wonderful bedtime experience.

the weather is promising  and last night was an excellent start to the world series, kershaw was on his game and the game was worthy of storage on the pvr. i have all the previous dodger games on the pvr and will add the remaining world series games to the collection. i'll watch these games throughout the winter. although i'll remember which team wins the series, i'll forget the the details and enjoy the encore, maybe more than once.

baseball is a state of mind, adding synchronicity and order to a world gone mad. watching the concentration and sweat drip off the pitcher's face as he shakes off signals from the catcher gives me faith in the human spirit.  it's a battle, the bases might loaded with nobody out but a good pitcher like kershaw doesn't despair, he battles.

i'm still on the hunt for a new glove but haven't been able to find the perfect fit. the sporting goods stores have a poor selection at the moment so i'll probably have to wait until spring and who knows, i might find my old glove in the meantime. the woman's glove i picked up earlier is a great glove, too bad the son of a bitch has all that pink trim. the rip needs a strong role model and a male human wearing a pink baseball glove might harm her psyche.

i've finished the gnostic gospels and it's just like all the other religions. it sounds terrific but there are a lot of strings attached with no guarantees.  the one good thing about gnosticism is good old mary magdalene gets a fair shake, not like the raw deal she was given by those misogynists padding their expense accounts at the council of nicea. countless strings attached and no guarantee of eternal bliss, i'll remain a religious free agent.

faith solicited does not equal faith freely given and the guys in charge of religion don't give much stuff away for free.

billy loves you sons of bitches.

adios sunshine

the warm weather is gone and the struggle with winter is about to begin, i hope i'm ready.

after the harrowing experience of being kidnapped by a nogoodnik neighborhood punk, the scooter is in dry dock. i spent the better part of yesterday cleaning out and organizing all the treasures and clutter that were collected in the summer to make room the poor thing. the oil was changed, the tank was filled with ethonal-free high octane gas and now it's just a matter of finding the trickle charger to finish the task.

i've had the scooter for two summers now and try as i may, i couldn't come up with a good nickname, but this morning jesus whispered the magical nickname in my ear.

from this point forward, the mighty scooter shall be known as MACK. mack is a very important name in classic literature. it was mack who ended the reign of terror from yertle, the tyrant of salamasond and it was mack who organized the mighty frog hunt in cannery row. yes, mack is a titan of classic  literature. long live mack and thank you jesus!

but scooters aren't the center of my universe at the moment.  the baseball playoffs have me in seventh heaven. yesterday i watched verlander throw a complete game for the astros with 13 strikeouts!  it's pretty rare to see a complete game pitched in the era of bullpens and pitch counts. the cherry on top was the fact that it was against those evil new york yankees! verlander's cherry on top is kate upton.

the dodgers beat the cubs which was great but kershaw only lasted 5 innings which has me worried. kershaw is my favorite player and he was on the disabled list this year due to a back strain and that gives me pause. kershaw vs verlander in the world series would be a match made in heaven.

speaking of heaven, i've decided it might be the place for me after all.  studying the nag hammadi library by day and orgasming on baseball in the evening has convinced me that there just might be something to the intelligent design point of view.

mack, verlander, kershaw, nag hammadi library...........

billy loves you sons of bitches.

i be thankful

today is canuck thanksgiving, big deal eh?  but i'm thankful.

i'm thankful because there are 4 playoff baseball games on today and thanksgiving is over for me. i cooked a prime rib roast yesterday and i didn't fuck it up.

yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, possibly the last sunny warm day of the year for us and i took full advantage of it. i sat in the sun, on the old aluminum web lawn chair and read oscar wilde's de profundis for the 3rd time in a month. it's a beautiful piece of literature.

the second half of de profundis is about wilde's perception and relationship with christ, it's the tenderest and most sincere depiction of christ that i've ever come across. that's why i've read it 3 times recently and why i'll probably read it a few more times before the year ends. it fills me with contentment and a tiny bit of humility and has moved me to absorb more of the christian spirit.

i might have the spirit of christ but i didn't just fall off the turnip truck. i realize that the official new testament is a product of the council of nicea and is more of a political compromise than an accurate account of events that may or may not have taken place. in order to fill my thirst for all things christ i turned to the public library and made my selection, the complete idiots guide to the gnostic gospels.

you can call me doubting thomas.

can you not believe in god and still be a christian?  me and oscar think it's not just possible, it's the logical thing to do. christians aren't into smiting those that give us pause.

billy says feed the needy, not the greedy.

knots

it's all over now but the shouting as far as splitting wood goes.  yesterday i decided to do battle with the few renegade knots which had caused me grief back in august.  the sons of bitches didn't get any weaker after a month of drying out.

you wouldn't believe how securely this knot was embedded in the trunk

it took a sledge hammer, two wedges, a hand saw and an impact driver to break the bond of love between those two seemingly innocent pieces of wood. but in the end, justice was served.

here's another knot that i removed over a month ago. this is knot was my nemesis, i hurt my back taking golf swings with the mattock to break it up. the injury occurred when i missed the son of a bitch and tried to control my follow through, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

the lovely mrs myshkin and most of the neighbors thought i was crazy battling the wood. but i saved several hundred dollars and learned a lot about how trees are constructed.  so it goes.

billy loves you sons of bitches.