No baseball for me

The Red Sox are in Anaheim to play the Angels and first pitch will be at 9:30 tonight. That means I might make it through 2 or 3 innings but that's debatable.

I hate it when they play in the pacific time zone..

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Yesterday afternoon, Ware police arested two women for cocaine possesion.

If ever there was a poster child for what drugs do to you, it's this woman:

According to the news, Samantha (or maybe she likes to be call "Sam") is 44 years old.

That is the hardest looking 44 year old I think I've ever seen. If someone asked me how old that woman is, I would guess 60, maybe 65.

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I don't want to say I celebrated the anniversary of our nation's independence in an illegal fashion but I will say that John Adams would have been proud.

You see, President Adams wrote to his wife regarding the Declaration of Independence and said the following:

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

The key phrase in that statement is "Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more"

I'm just doing my part to live up to the request of President Adams.

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Dinner was pan seared scallops and it was good.

While I figure out what to do until 9:30, you can enjoy these links :

• Amazingly enough, this did not happen in Australia.



• Monkey Gland Operation would be a great name for a World War II assault on a Japanese-held island.



• If you go to visit Cornwall, England, stay away from Wally Walrus.

Merry Independence Day everybody.

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My mother-in-law will spend at least one more day (probably two) in the hospital. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her so we suspect it might be because she going to need nursing care and due to the holiday, they are having trouble arranging VNA services.

My wife went and visited with her for a bit this afternoon so at least she had some company today.

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My day was spent dismantling and painting my two carriage lights and my post light.

After 30 years of weather and sun, they were pretty faded and I was either going to replace them or make an attempt to paint them. We bought them and I installed them almost 30 years ago and I don't recall ever doing anything to them after that.

I spent a few minutes studying them and discovered they were made of brass sheet and were held together with brass screws. For me to find new light fixtures of that quality now-a-days would be pretty near impossible and even if you could find them, they would cost an outrageous amount of money.

Once I made my decision, I dismantled them and laid all the parts on some cardboard in the garage. I could not remove the glass because it was held in with tabs that would have either snapped when I tried to bend them out of the way or I would have cracked the glass. That meant taping off the glass.

Once the parts were taped, I sprayed them with a nice coating of gloss black paint and let them dry for a few hours.

Once the paint hardened, it was simply a matter of remantling (Is that a word? It should be a word. If you dismantle something, you should be able to remantle it.) them and now they are back in place and they look brand new.

It always fascinates me what you can do with a little knowledge and some spray paint.

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The Red Sox lost in the 12th inning last night. No, I did not stay up to see them lose but what I did watch was a good game of baseball. Both teams played hard and they traded leads throughout the game. I fell asleep in the 8th inning just as the A's tied the game 4-4 and when I woke up, I was not surprised to see that it took 12 innings.

As for this afternoon, the Red Sox won 1-0.

Again, both teams played hard and it was a good game to watch. Pivetta pitched a great 7 innings and held the A's to 2 hits and no runs. The Red Sox almost blew it in the ninth but Barnes held on & got the necessary three outs before the A's could score and tie the game.

In other Red Sox news, there will be 5 Red Sox players in the All Star game this year: Devers, Bogaerts, Martinez, Eovaldi and Barnes will all be in Denver to play in what I consider the single most meaningless game in all of sports, which is good because it shouldn't have any meaning.

The All Star game is really just a way for MLB to say, "All you guys are pretty good at what you do. Here's some swag and a nice little addition to your resumé that you can use come contract negotiation time."

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While I admire my freshly painted light fixtures and catch up on some DVRs, you can enjoy these links:

• Key repeated phrase in this story: "didn’t think much about it."



• New Zealand: Australia's crazy cousin.



• This looks way better than plain old fireworks.



• I'm just going to stay indoors.



• Only in Florida.

Still busy

So the family emergency we had yesterday involved my mother-in-law. She is fine, just a little damaged and in the hospital for some observation after getting stitched up for a large gash.

My wife and I spent quite a bit of time at the hospital yesterday. Today we expected her to be returned to her dwelling but the doctor decided to keep her an extra day.

This gave us time to go to her place, do some repair work on her wheelchair, tidy things up a bit and speak to the staff there about her future.

We expect her to be discharged tomorrow.

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The Red Sox and the Athletics went at it for 10 innings last night and in the end, the Red Sox came out on top 3-2.

I was only able to watch 2 or 3 innings before I fell asleep so I was surprised when I checked the box scores to see that they won. And since the Rays lost this afternoon, the Red Sox are now 5 games ahead in first place in the ALEast. As for the American League, they are 2 games ahead of the White Sox in first. In Major League Baseball, they are tied with the Giants for first place.

Not bad for a team that was predicted to suck by all the alleged experts. Then again, the experts also predicted that the Yankees would dominate and win it all.

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Tonight's game is on FOX at 7:15 and Don Orsillo will allegedly be calling the game. I miss Don Orsillo.

Actually, I miss the camaraderie and fun that Remy and Orsillo had in the booth. They made it fun to watch a game, even when the Red Sox sucked.

So while I watch baseball, you can click on these:

• In my humble firearms-owning opinion, it's assholes like this that cause the legislators to tighten gun laws.



• Wait a minute.... Why the hell would they do this when they have a major mouse plague going on right now?



• If you're more than a little wealthy and you want to associate only with other wealthy people, they got a place just for you.



• My daughters dog just looks out the window for a minute and then falls back to sleep.

Busy day

We had a family emergency today and I didn't get around to doing interwebbing.

Tomorrow will be better, I promise.

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I found a few links for you:

• I am never going to Japan.



• This does not sound good.



• Maybe this is why I have low blood pressure.



• I'm pretty sure that is not how you parallel park.

Four down, none to go.

Due to rain delays, I was only able to watch about six innings of last night's baseball game. When I woke up this morning, I was pleased to see that the Red Sox maintained their early lead and won the game 6-2.

First pitch for this afternoon's game was at 1:10 and it was not rain delayed so I was able to watch all nine innings. That means I was able to see the Red Sox beat the living daylights out of the Royals 15-1.

This gives the Red Sox another sweep and places them firmly in first place in not only their division but in the American League. They currently have a 3½ game lead in the ALEast and a 2 game lead in the AL. If the Giants lose tonight, the Red Sox and Giants will be tied for first place in the MLB.

Now the Red Sox are on a plane for the left coast where they will play three games against the Athletics and three games against the Angels. I was surprised to see that three of those games start at 9:30, one game starts at 7:00 and two start at 4:00. That means I will be able to watch quite a bit of pacific time zone baseball. Normally those games start around 10:00 and I don't see any of them so I'm a happy guy.

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The high temps have moved on but it's still kinda humid out there. I turned my AC off this morning and within a half hour, I turned it back on.

Maybe I'll turn it off tonight when the temps drop below 70°.

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Still no ammo to be had.

So far I've called four local stores, visited two local stores and called several stores in NH and Vermont. All have the same answer: "Nope. We don't have that."

Might be time for me to get back into reloading. It's time consuming and, if you don't pay attention to what you are doing, it can be dangerous but once you have all the components, you can produce what you need when you need it.

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Enjoy these links:

• Being both unlucky and stupid is a crappy way to go through life.



• I want one.



• Key bald-faced lie in this story: "I’m not making any threats."



• I have a feeling there was something other than fireworks in that trailer.



• I'm happy to report that he is not related to me.



• Amazingly enough, this did not happen in Australia.