driveway expansion

So I promised Jon I'd get these pictures posted--they're of his hard work last weekend.

Here's what it looked like just after he got started. Grass, dirt, and pebbles.

Phase 2: remove the landscaping fabric and pebbles.

And the end result: a driveway that will be considerably easier to shovel and snow blow!! Yea!

Facebook???

So, I'm on Facebook now. I don't know exactly how it happened, since I said 3 years ago that I would never join. If I'd gotten in on the ground floor many years ago it would be different, but I figured it would be really lame for someone my age to get in on it so late. Who joins when they're 30? Well, I do, apparently. What's surprising is how much I'm enjoying it. As of today, I have 22 friends, including a couple of people who I've been trying to find for years! Now, many people would say, "ONLY 22 friends?! How sad!" And I say, holy cow, 22 people claim they know me?!?! That's frickin' fantastic! I may just have a heart attack if I reach 25!

Irksome!

For those of you out of state and/or who don't give a crap about Tiger's baseball, I'll tell you that this was a disappointing season, well a disappointing END of season. The Tigers (stupidly) traded away veteran, All Star catcher Pudge Rodriguez on the trade deadline in July to the Yankees and acquired a (crappy) relief pitcher, Kyle Farnsworth. This trade was bad (idiotic) enough, but after their season has ended I read this:


C[atcher] Dusty Ryan has shown enough that Detroit feels he could at least open the 2009 season on the major league roster, but the Tigers prefer to have a veteran to at least split time with the rookie. “Do I think we could get by (with Ryan)?” Leyland said. “Probably. Would it be the best thing? Probably not.”


They need a veteran catcher? Damn straight they need a veteran catcher, after they (moronically) traded away the best catcher in the league. But, hey, Pudge is with the Yankees now, so we couldn't get him back anyway, right?

Wrong. The Yankees won't be renewing Pudge's contract, which means he's up for grabs. But will the Tigers bring back our beloved Pudge? Heck no. Dave Dombrowski has done some fantastic things for the Tigers (including bringing Pudge here in the first place to anchor the struggling team in 2004) and some pretty dumb ones (most notably trading Pudge, but also the acquiring of Gary Sheffield, 2006, and Edgar Renteria, 2007). But even though we need a catcher, and one of the best catchers in the league (I don't care if he's 36) is available, this match up seems unlikely to occur. I suppose it would be a little embarrassing to bring back a player who was so recently traded away, but heck, the fans don't care. We just want our Pudge back!!!