Toronto and Buffalo

Before going back to work I got in one last vacation.  My friends Meier and Nanci were going to Buffalo for a week with a two-day side trip to Toronto in the middle.  Having never been to either or Niagara Falls, at least that I remember, I decided to join them for part of the trip.  When am I ever going to have a chance to see Buffalo or Toronto?

Flew into Toronto on Monday and they met me at the airport after I passed through customs.  We drove to downtown Toronto and wandered around.  Perhaps the most interesting things we saw was Paws Way, which is as cute as the pictures on their web site.  It's part dog history museum, part educational facility, part shop, and part training center.  They also have a little cafe in the front.  I had no idea such a thing existed anywhere.  Had dinner at Il Fornello.  Went back to our hotel, which was all the way back by the airport, but not before driving through the large Jewish neighborhood of Toronto.  Next day we got a late start, saw Casa Loma (house on the hill) which is a famous historic castle.  After being there and watching some house hunters, I decided our home should have a fancy name.  So now we live at "Casa Oso" or perhaps we should call it "Casa Oso de miel".

We had a late lunch then spent an hour at the Shoe museum which was surprisingly OK.  By pure coincidence the Mariners were in town, so we went to the Blue Jays game that night.  We had checked ahead and thought it would be fun to see a game in Toronto.  Of course, the Mariners lost and looked terrible, but made it interesting in the 9th.  Ichiro had 4 hits. And the stadium was empty.  We complain about the Mariners drawing 10-15K, but there must have been only about 4000 people at the game though the Jays reported 12K paid.  Before going to the game Nanci and I went up the CN Tower and had great views of the city and a cool view looking straight down on Rogers Centre (nee the Skydome).

 

 

Went back to the airport hotel, got some sleep then got up the next "morning" and headed to Niagara Falls on the way to Buffalo. 

Niagara Falls was awesome.  A picture is worth 1000 words.

We had hoped to play poker at Casino Niagara but they had a couple of dealers call in sick and had 15 names on the wait list.  I found this stunning as I'm sure they could have found back up dealers.  In this economy every dealer is looking to pick up extra shifts. Then back to the US of A. Buffalo isn't very touristy.  After Meier and Nanci dropped me at my hotel I walked around downtown for a little bit and saw some of the historic buildings.  Meier picked me up later and we went to Duff's for buffalo wings with Nanci's family -- how can you go to Buffalo and not have wings?!  Wings were good but we all ate too much.  Meier and I headed back to the Falls to play some poker, actually wound up playing on the New York side and had an interesting border crossing at 2:30 AM when we wanted to go back to pick up poker chips.  Ended OK but got home very, very late.

Thursday I got up and wandered around town by myself.  Walked down to Coca-Cola Field, then walked along the waterfront and looked across to Canada.  Meier met me and we discovered that City Hall has a free viewpoint on the 28th floor so we got a good look at the city.  Then it was back to eating -- some famous hot dog place that didn't impress me at all and Anderson's for custard (soft serve ice cream) which was pretty good.  Then airport and home.

Lots packed in in just four days.

The Idiocy of the Cubs

The Cubs are in town which happens about once every 6 years, so I spent much of the past three days at the Mariners games.  Looking at the talent on the team, I've been puzzled at why the Cubs have struggled this year.  The starting pitching is so good, Zambrano has spent much of the year in the pen.  Marshall and Marmol are great to close out games. And there's a collection of pretty good hitters.

Having looked closer, it's pretty apparent that there are two things going on.  First, despite the names and reputations on the infielders they've been terrible this year.  In fact Lee, Theriot, Castro, and Ramirez have all played below replacement level.  That pretty much kills the offense.  Lee's OPS is down 250 points from last year and he's played below his 10th percentile PECOTA projection.  Theriot and Ramirez are below their 10% as well.  In fact Ramirez put up 200 of the worst at bats ever before going on the DL.  These three guys are 6 wins worse than projected already. To some degree, you can't do anything about good players sucking.

But then there's an insane about of stupid decision making going on.  Lou Piniella is beloved in Seattle as the manager who got the Mariners to the playoffs, but I've never been impressed.  The Cubs best hitters this year are Colvin, Soriano, Byrd, and Soto. It took until June before Colvin became a regular, Soriano is only playing 2/3 of the time, Soto spent most of the year hitting 7th or 8th and recently lost his starting job to Koyie Hill (who can't hit worth a lick).  The Cubs worst hitters are Ramirez, Theriot, Baker, and Lee.  Lee has hit 3rd or 4th all season, Theriot has hit leadoff until recently and Baker has been given the 3rd base job with Ramirez hurt.  Now batting order doesn't matter much, but you have to think that getting the best hitters in the lineup every day at the top of the order and putting the weaker hitters at the bottom couldn't hurt.

Wait, but then there's the pitching.   Tom Gorzelanny isn't the name that some of the others are but he was the Cubs best starter last year, though he had a terrible ERA because of a 62% strand rate -- a level so low it has to be bad luck.  And this year he's been striking on > 1 batter per inning something matched by only 4 NL starters.  He's probably the Cubs best starter again yet he's relegated to the bullpen, where he's been ineffective.  That said, it's a pretty tough call who to put in the pen.  Zambrano and Lilly are the 5th and 6th best starters but the Cubs have invested a lot in them and really need the big three to succeed.  But Gorz has been too good to NOT to go every 5 days. Much like Colvin, it doesn't matter which OF you sit because he's better than all of them.  Personally I'd put Lilly in the pen to see if he can get his act together but Big Z is on a short leash.  Or I'd think about something radical like a six-man rotation letting them pitch a bit deeper into games.

That said, with the complete disaster by the infield, this team is dead in the water.  But they're also making dumb decisions on a daily basis that cost the team runs and wins.

If there's a silver lining, it's doubtful Piniella will be back.  I expect him to "retire" and become a broadcaster.

Day 11 and 12, Sports

Met a friend for breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Kirkland.  On weekends this place is packed crazy, hard to find parking, and basically you give your name and walk around for 45 minutes.  I was surprised that at 8:30 during the week I could park right in front and the place was empty.

Spent a bunch of time Wednesday trying to get my softball team in order.  Everyone seems to be out of town this weekend and I'm trying to find subs to show up at 10 AM.  Fun, fun, NOT.  Also the floor guy came back to check on the hardwoods and how they're "settling".  Can see the cherry wood getting darker already.  We set the official date for him to finish and talked about doing the stairs as well.  Will all wait until I'm back from Vegas.

Wednesday night went to the second Storm game of the season.  I've been to two of two games so far and will likely make about two games the rest of the year.  As I expected they were sloppy at times and looked great at times.  They trailed most of the game but put in together in the last three minutes and won by 3.  In the end it's a W not an L and that's all that counts.

Started some research on electric toothbrushes for Monica (why aren't these called teethbrushes?) and continued today.  Down to a handful of choices.  Basically got up today, had breakfast, did some misc stuff, tried to walk Hunny Bear until the drizzle turned to pouring rain and got ready to go to the Mariners game.  When Aaron and I split up tickets before the season, I figured this would be a beautiful day to be outside and the Mariners would be fun to watch.  Instead it was 50 and cold.  The sun was out for a couple of innings, but then they closed the roof because storms were approaching. Then it was 50 in the shade and COLD.  And the Mariners were terrible, down 3-1 going to the 9th.  In the ninth they showed more life than they have in weeks and put together a great rally to win!!  This was the first time I've seen them win in person this year (1-6).  Aaron, who I share seats with, says they've won every game he's attended. 

Got home, made dinner, and met with a photographer who's doing a family photo for us.

Friday and the weekend (long)

Friday I finished cleaning our outdoor furniture and moving it upstairs to the deck.  We now have 10 chairs and a "bench", so it's more work than it sounds.  Though it's mainly tedious -- lots of trips around the house.  I moved our table on Sunday.  It's big, glass, and heavy; that was actually work.  And when I thought I was done, Monica said "hey let's put one chair downstairs so I can sit with the dogs".  Score one point for well-written acceptance criteria.

Met my friend Jay for lunch on Friday and got to catch up.  Jay's sort of like Griffey, Jr. -- he was the face and the star of our softball team for a number of years but was often injured and those injuries have finally led him to retire.  What's that?  Griffey hasn't retired yet?

Spent a lot of time over the weekend working on taxes, mainly stock sales, interest, and dividends.  This is where having managed accounts -- like mutual funds but you own actual stocks -- becomes a pain. Lots and lots of stock transactions.  Import/download is a life saver, but verifying is still a fair amount of work. Yuck!

In more fun stuff, Saturday I helped man the both for Monica at the Redmond pet fair.  My role is basically to watch the booth when she needs a break and keep her company.  It isn't busy enough and I don't really know enough about Ttouch or pet adoption counseling to share the booth.  For the first time she's set up at one of these things, it was actually useful.  I don't know if she'll actually get anyone who calls, but she talked to a number of people who seemed very interested in her services, took her card, and should call her. On of our observations mid-way through the day was that 10-3 was too long for this event.  Everyone started packing up their booths at 2:30, so I guess we weren't alone in that view.  I walked outside at 2:25 to get some fresh air and when I came back 1/3 of the "vendors" were gone.  I think once the first person bailed, everyone else decided it was OK to follow suit.  By 3:00, there was no one left.
 Saturday night we went to a great dinner at Ruth's Chris, separate post coming.  Sunday was mainly running around.  We had softball in the morning and played one of the key games of the season.  Before the 2008 season I split our team in two.  We had developed a group of players who thought recreational co-ed softball was all about winning and not about having fun (OK they liked to have fun, but their idea of fun was winning).  Their attitudes sucked and it made it no fun to play on Sunday.  I kicked a couple people off the team a few of their friends from my team joined them and they decided to recruit a bunch of good players and form their own team.  I wouldn't say this team is our rival but they're one of the better teams in the division, they care a lot about the final score, and half the players used to be on our team, so the game is special.  We scored 3 runs in the top of the first and never trailed though the game was a toss up until we pulled away in the 6th and 7th innings.  We played terrific defense which was the key and got them out running the bases four or five times, though the umpire missed one of the outs.  Final was 13-6.

Sunday afternoon Hunny Bear had an acupuncture appointment.  And then Sunday evening I went to the Storm Opening Night.  The game was sloppy as I'd expect.  Training camp is about 3 weeks in the WNBA and the star players don't get back from overseas until the last week.  So you're watching a team that's practiced together for about 4 days.  It was pretty ugly at times and the Storm had long stretches where they didn't score, but in the end they beat LA, their #1 rival, by about 10 points.

Oh yeh, Sprint 3 planning Sunday night.

Day 3

Went to Hideaway to play their 10:30 poker tournament. This is the best structured daily tournament in town.  You start with 100BB which gives you some time to play before you're short stacked and generally the field is small so it's not a luck fest until you're at the final table.  One of the guys who seemed to be a regular said they get 40 or 50 people which I found surprising.  They actually had 22 people at the start and just had two tables with two alternates. I lasted about an hour in the tournament.  On the only good hand I had early I managed to steal the blinds.  Lost a bunch of chips where I got unlucky and then bluffed off much of my stack against a guy who couldn't figure out he should fold, or had an amazing read on me.

Had lunch with my friend Meier and talked at length about ideas for an upcoming Vegas trip.  Seems like it actually might not make sense to drive down, even for a long stay.  Then came home to work on the yard.  I fixed the light in the backyard; actually if just fixed itself but I programmed the timer.  Filled in half a dozen holes in backyard and pretty the ground for reseeding.  We love our dogs, but wow do they do a number on the lawn; number 1 that is.

Then to the Mariners game for the second night in a row. Who knew filling dirt would be more fun than the Mariners game.  Wow is it cold for May baseball.  The reported crowd was 17,000 but this is one of the two smallest crowds I've seen. Can't believe it was much more than 10K, if that.

Day 2, Wednesday

As planned much of the day was pre-work on the hardwoods.

To replace the carpets in the living room and dining/piano room with hardwoods (thanks doggies), we need to get all of the furniture out of the way.  For the most part Monica and I could move the items ourselves, but there's the matter of a huge, heavy piano so we hired professionals to store everything in our garage for a month.

Got in a quick workout before the movers were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM.  Unfortunately there was a car fire on the 520 bridge and even more unfortunate they chose to take 520 instead of coming across I-90 which delayed them until 10:45.   Other than that the move went smoothly.  The wood delivery showed up at 11, but they kept out of each other's way though they were using the same space.  Move was done by noon.

My little project for the day was to fix the outdoor light for our backyard. At least I thought it was little -- position ladder, remove bulb, replace bulb.  That didn't help.  The light is on a programmable timer switch and it turns out the batteries in the switch needed to be replaced.  Had to go to Fred Meyer to get tiny watch-like batteries.. and now the switch works but the light doesn't come on.  Working more on this today.  Also picked up a programmable lock for the garage -- the kind where you can punch in a combination instead of using a key.  Our garage is detached so we need to unlock it every time we go in there.  This probably would have happened a year ago if there was room for my car in there.

Went to the Mariners game last night.  Pretty good for 7 innings, but overall yuck.  It's pretty painful to watch Griffey play.  And without Bradley, that offense is terrible.

Off to play poker in the AM.