Celebrations and Irritations

Yet another clever name for a blog entry of random notes.

* I got a phone call yesterday afternoon from my long-lost friend Jessica. She wanted to tell me that she's now engaged to her boyfriend Matt, who she's been seeing for quite a while. Jess is one of my oldest and best friends, and I'm very happy for her. Our friendship goes back eleven years, to Mr. Rieck's American History class during our junior year at Troy High School. Congratulations, Jess.

* There's really no appropriate segue from that to this, but I finally got to see the Reds play last night. Their game was televised on Fox Sports Ohio on a night when the Indians didn't have a game. I'm happy to report that the Reds beat the Pirates 5-2, led by two of my favorite players: Sean Casey (2-run homer) and Adam Dunn (2-run double). I even managed to resist the seduction of my couch, staying awake through the whole thing. I had to take advantage of the opportunity to watch them play, since I don't know when it'll happen again. They're fun to watch.

* I was planning to keep a running journal during the game and post it here, but alas, I think my laptop has finally given up the ghost after four years of hard use. It was having issues anyway. The battery wouldn't hold a charge, the touchpad buttons no longer worked, and the screen had a tendency to tip over if you tried to open it too far. Now it won't even accept power from the AC adapter without a lot of help. I'm thinking about taking it in and having it worked on (the battery and power cord can be replaced, if needs be), but I wonder if it's worth the investment. I'd eventually like a new one anyway, with more functionality. I suppose if I could get it done fairly cheap I'd do it, just to have one to use in the meantime.

* I was reading this story in the Toledo Blade this morning. It deals with the investigation of some possible Satanistic rituals in the area, and I saw one minor thing in it that kind of irritated me. They refer to one man quoted in the article as "a self-proclaimed wiccan". I'm just wondering, who else would proclaim him as such? Of course it's self-proclaimed; that's how religion works. I don't know if the author of the article used this wording to downplay the validity of the man's religion or not, but that's how it came across to me. That's highly irritating to me. Wicca may not be nearly as widespread as other religions, but that doesn't make it any more or less valid, or deserving of any less respect.

* Some BGSU football fans, many of whom also happen to be Cleveland Browns fans, are already forsaking departing Falcons Josh Harris and Janssen Patton, who are joining the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively. I understand that both teams are big rivals of the Browns, but I think it's sad that these fans can turn so quickly on players that did so much for our program. It's not as though BG has all that many former players in the NFL. Personally, I'm a Bengals fan, and they're also in the same division (with Cleveland) as Baltimore and Pittsburgh, but I'm still going to root for my fellow BGSU alumni to do well. I do understand the rivalry factor, but come on.

* It's good to be king (or, at least, Purchasing Manager). Through one of our company's vendors, I just scored tickets to Saturday's NHL playoff game in Detroit, the Red Wings vs. the Calgary Flames. That should be a lot of fun. I'm not the world's biggest hockey fan, by any means, but the games are awesome in person.