Geez, tonight was our first softball game and we gave up 20+ runs before getting an out. Ugly. Lots of dropped popups and ground balls that just were missed, and the 15-20 incredibly hard hit balls. To add injury to insult, I took a line drive off of my arm
pit.

It got better after that horrid start but still.


On the other hand, there was a beautiful dusk tonight on my drive home. I took the viaduct and there was a ferry coming across the Sound and it felt all peaceful. Hopefully the Tsunami will improve soon. Right now though, I'm icing my arm.

Stats: 2-3 2 R. My second hit was very hard so I'm happy with that. We didn't have an ump so no walks or K's.

I was wondering why Clinton made such back strategic decisions. Time has an article out, explaining why. Apparently she didn't understand the rules:

Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her,instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates.It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows,Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?"And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee.

This scares me more than anything I've seen about a potential Clinton presidency. She was given "facts" that were clearly wrong, facts that any random blogger who studied this race knew were wrong, and didn't bother to double check. If she couldn't get the facts about California not being winner take all correctly, if she couldn't understand the not very complicated Texas system, how will she cope with the much more complicated problems that a president would have to deal with? I suppose she could grow in office but I can't understand how someone could get that fact wrong and then not be immediately fired when it became obvious how large the mistake was. Pennie, you're doing a heck of a job.

Current Music: Heavenly - Wish Me Gone

They're more touristy than musicy as this was Mel's first trip to the Crescent City, but there are some good ones in there. Check them out if you want, it's a mixture of hurricane damage, Mel in front of landmarks, and music shots.

Current Music: Page McConnell - Maid Marian

I don't know if I ever posted it here, but my prediction was that Obama was going to lose PA, win NC by a larger percentage of the vote and IN was going to be close. I had no idea that IN would be that close. Good for Clinton for winning it, but in the proportional system a sub 2 point win is no different than a sub 2 point loss really. The only question now is whether I'll win the penny I bet our receptionist back before PA that she'd drop out within a week of NC/IN. That really sounded like a farewell speech to me last night...

Home. Tired. Fun trip. More later.

You gotta love this town. Flights are delayed so a passenger pulled out his slide guitar and is playing a pretty good set. Passengers in the waiting area are applauding after every song and taking photos. Where else does this happen? Colin Lake is his name FWIW.

Coming back from the fairgrounds today we had the taxi driver of insanity. First he just went on some random roads forever. I assumed it was OK, because we kept heading south which meant that eventually we'd hit the river and could walk or something. We finally emerged from terrifying looking roads and saw some French street signs. Then came the fun.

Two blocks from our hotel, our driver made a hard left from the right lane against a red light and into oncoming traffic. When he almost got hit (by two different cars), he screamed at them for their driving. Mel just threw him a $20 (a 100% tip) just so we could get out of there.

Good thing today is our planned down day because they're calling for massive storms, with potential for tornadoes. I guess I get to see how these new levies work.

As for last night, Greyboy AllStars on the Riverboat (which didn't move, alas) and then Mike in a small bar at 4 AM!

( W00T! )

That picture shows about 2/3 of the width of the stage. I don't remember the last time I saw a member of Phish on a stage that small.

You gotta love going to a random show at Jazz Fest (albeit with a tip that Page might show up) and getting a half Phish reunion for a while. Page and Mike were playing not a foot from each other at the Howlin' Wolf. The good news, I got to see it all about 4 feet away from them. The bad news? I didn't bring my camera :/

The set closed with Vida Blue's best song "Most Events Aren't Planned" and I believe all 3 members were on stage then, along with about 20 other people. Insanity!

Current Music: Grateful Dead - Terrapin Station