Westward ho!

Tomorrow's the big day. I'm going back to Kansas for the first time since I left for Boston a little more than three months ago. It will be a fairly long day with my travels starting around 10:30 a.m. and ending around 10:30 p.m. (both EST).

I was able to finagle some last-minute work as I returned to JFK Library for a couple of days of work. I was back on the phones again making calls to celebratory and some not-so-celebratory people. The event that I was calling for this time was an upcoming forum with Ken Burns where he will show clips of and discuss his new documentary, "The War," which is about World War II. I'm sure it would actually be a pretty interesting program.

Last weekend was the White Lake Reunion as I had written about before leaving but I have failed to get anything up about that. I hope to change that in the near future. The trip there was quite eventful (in a good way). Teaser: dum-dums and the parking lot of doom.

For those of you who have been praying about the Draper position that I applied for, I found out on Friday that they chose to go with someone else. It would have been nice to have received the job just to have work in a field that I'm fairly comfortable with but I'm OK with moving on to something else. Since I have Draper behind me and nothing really on my "desk" at the moment, I am heading out to Kansas for a couple of weeks. I leave this Friday and return on October 8. As you could expect, I'm really looking forward to it.

A little brown stain

Today, I water-proofed/stained the third floor deck at the Fishers' house. I started out pounding in nails that were protruding from the boards and then sanded the surface to "open the pores" as the stain can suggested. The project was then finished off by applying the stain. I thought that this would be a multiple-day project but it actually only took me six hours. With the deck being entirely exposed to the sun, I was glad that it was only a 72-degree day, even though it felt hotter than that on the deck. My construction-working brother may now officially call me a wimp...With that humiliation behind me, here are the pictures I took with my cell phone to archive this wonderful adventure.

This is a little past halfway through. Despite what may look like a shadow, that is the part that has already been stained. The previous stain was well-worn, but the right side is that light due to sanding. I was saved on the sanding as Tom had a contraption made up of a push-broom handle attached to a piece that allowed you to stick the sandpaper on. This was store bought; not to say that Tom couldn't have come up with this on his own. The point? It made the sanding go fairly quickly.

The picture to the left is of the other side of the deck at the same time. The pounding and sanding took me two hours and the staining four. I had so much fun all day trying to lean over those railings attempting to apply stain to the edges of the boards. They were so wonderfully designed to be a couple inches longer than my legs so that I had to wedge my toes in between the rails and then lean over. I felt like I was mooning the clouds all day long. I did appreciate Tom providing me with good materials, though. The stain was quality (Cabot--that's Australian, mate!) and a I had a brush made all the in Italy. The can had suggested applying the stain with lamb's wool but alas, after the lack of rain in Boston in August, all our sheep were shipped to Kansas where the grass is green.

Here's an attempt at a picture of the deck completed. Perty, isn't it?

The one downside of the venture? Having to bend over to apply the stain, I was left with a wonderful plumber's...you thought crack, didn't you? Alright, you didn't. But anyway, I'll call it a plumber's sunburn. Insert comments of humiliation again.

In case you were wondering...

Just as an update, I still have not heard back from Draper. I would ask that you continue to pray that they would give me some sort of response soon. In the meantime, I'll be working on waterproofing Tom and Martha Fisher's third floor deck. This will definitely be an experience for me. Finally, this weekend, I'll be traveling with a group here from Cambridge to serve as a chaperon at the White Lake Reunion (aka youth retreat). I'm looking forward to it.

HI-YAH!

Needless to say, this Japanese baseball game gets a little ugly...Editor's correction: It has been pointed out to me a couple of times that this is clearly Korean. Heaven forbid the Japanese should have their names dragged through the mud like this. My deepest apologies. :)

Return to Fenway

Last night, Mr. Wright took me to a Red Sox game at Fenway vs. the Toronto Blue Jays. It was the second time that I have been to Fenway. Before the game, I walked the entire way around the outside of the park looking to buy some t-shirts. Unfortunately, my search turned out to be futile. However, I was able to see the "parking lot" where the Red Sox players' cars are parked, of which I've read about in various sports publications in the past. I'm sorry to report that I did not think to take pictures of it for you, the audience of this blog. I was impressed by the parking skills (and kinds of cars in the lot). Everything that is said about the Red Sox valets appears to be true from 40 feet away.

It truly is amazing to see how the park is made to fit into such a tiny space, which is reflected in the shape of the field. The limited amount of space also makes for the activities outside the park being rather cozy. To steal a description of the Cubs' Wrigley Field, if you're a Red Sox fan, the outside of Fenway certainly does lend itself to being some friendly confines.

The game was a good one, with Josh Beckett lining up against Roy Halladay. There was a stat in the Gameday Publication that Mr. Wright pointed out to me about how long Halladay had lasted in his previous starts. To keep it short, this guy has stamina. It was easy to see why, too. One, he's a big guy. And, two, his follow-through seems so effortless as compared to other pitchers. Whereas their momentum carries them halfway to first/third base, Halladay releases the ball and then looks like he just took a sip of Coke. As could be hoped/expected, both pitchers fared well until they each had one bad inning in the middle of the contest. It was fun to see, or kinda see. That brings me to the one problem with last night was (and one major problem with Fenway):

This was my view of the field, which I didn't get too uptight about. I could see anything in play but as you can see, the section 9 pole perfectly hid home plate. It was also a packed house so Mr. Wright and I couldn't move anywhere else. Despite this, I had fun keeping score, conversing with two young Corps-men who were working on getting drunk next to us, and watching a good game. (As I said, the pitching was good but there were also three homeruns, a triple and some good base running.)

Well, I think I've written enough for this one "little" update. Buenos noches, mis amigos.

Hot Hot Hot

I wanted to pass along some grrrreat YouTubes for you today.

This first one is a promo for Appalachian State, the football team that knocked off Michigan this past weekend.



This second one is also football related. Apparently, the Raiders selected a two-year-old in this year's draft with pick 100.

A little squirrelly

For those of you interested in the Red Sox-Yankees series last week, one game the cameras captured a squirrel stranded atop the right field flag pole in Yankee Stadium. The crowd on that side of the stadium was raucous while watching this squirrel contemplate going down or staying put, even while the game carried on. Reading through Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback this morning, he provided a great quote from one of the sportscasters covering the game, the Yankees' telecaster Ken Singleton. "We should stop showing the squirrel,'' Singleton said. "It'll only encourage other squirrels to do the same thing.''

ahhh...

It has been a good and restful Sabbath. I've enjoyed the number of people that I have been able to talk to today and realized that I have many more to talk to yet. Here's to a day off for everybody tomorrow/today!