Cup of Coffee

October 23, 2012: One Citizen’s Dedication

84 Comments

Rev. JeffA,
Thank you for all that you do here at the WGOM. Your constant series on Birthdays and the various minor leagues throughout this hemisphere give us things to look at and discuss when things are slow, and things to get excited about when the major-league team. And you kee it up when we're distracted elsewhere.

Yet I think your biggest value to this community is that you serve as our little internet community's chaplain. When people have personal crises, you're there to comfort them, to speak with the reassuring voice that some of us lack. Your steady and calm voice tamps down high emotions that could easily fracture a group such as our own. I know that I have tried to keep my language more clean due to your presence (even though you say you don't mind). You provide a great example of how to behave as a real human connecting to others via the internet, unlike every other place on the internet that I have ventured upon.

I've described this place before as the neighborhood bar that I don't have. Yet it'd be a lucky saloon to have a regular of your caliber, to give advice when it's needed, to make dry jokes when it's not, and generally make everyone feel welcome.

Thank you for expanding your ministry from South Dakota to one small and half-baked corner of the world wide web. I appreciate all that you do here, immensely.
Sincerely,
AMR


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84 thoughts on “October 23, 2012: One Citizen’s Dedication”

  1. This week (WEEK, Week, week) I consider myself (SELF, Self self) the luckiest man (MAN, Man, man) on the face of the earth (EARTH, Earth, earth).

  2. I haven't been around much lately, but I'd like to echo (ECHO, Echo, echo) AMR's sentiments above. And especially the part about helping clean up AMR's language. That dude is worse than a freaking sailor.

    Seriously though, I am constantly amazed by the balanced and gracious approach you have here. One of the first things I learned about the WGOM was to be excited when I saw your name on a byline and to watch for your comments if I wanted to feel uplifted. Thanks.

  3. Mousal update:

    I bought some single use mouse traps that are manufactured by TomKat. They are very easy to bait and set with a compartment accessible from the bottom to load in their bait (sold separately!) or peanut butter. You set the traps by rotating them into a set position (the killing mechanism is powered by a torsional spring). I don't like that they are not reusable (and are more expensive), but they are also good in that they contain the carcass within the trap and have a clear as a bell indicator that they've got a deceased occupant therewithin. I bought these things so that when I'm gone, my wife can easily dispose of the traps. She doesn't have to look at the dead mouse, either. I tried to teach her how to set the traps, but she doesn't want to be a party to the killing.

    I bought four on Sunday night, set two outside along the west side of my house and one in the garage. Monday morning, I had a dead mouse in the garage. I set a new trap in the garage. This morning, I had a dead one outside. That makes seven trapped mice so far this season. I talked to my next door neighbor to the west. He is adjacent to a vacant lot with high grass. He told me that he has been trapping outside of his house on the west side. He's gotten, get this, north of 30 mice so far. Thirty. Three-zero. His neighbor to the west (on the cul-de-sac) has had some in the house and has gotten the exterminator out.

    The population explosion this year has been tremendous. I blame the mild winter. I see the damned things running around all the time. I would be lying if I said I was happy about this. I fully expect the next month or so to be regular carnage. I'm leaving in the morning, so I am going to set a number of traps and make sure that my assistant (Miss SBG) is checking the traps on a daily basis.

    1. After having pretty much a mole-free year, I've found a couple indications in the past couple weeks. I hate to see the lawn disturbed this late in the season, as there's less and less opportunity for it to recover well.

      2. They are certainly the best rodent killing machines available. When we first moved into our house, there were a couple of holes in the floor for the furnace ductwork. Once or twice the first winter, a mouse would get in, and the cat would stalk them and she would eventually catch them.

        2. They are certainly the best rodent killing machines available.

          I have a Jack Russell/Rat terrier cross that I'll put up against any housecat I've ever been around. She doesn't play with them, plus she immediately eats the carcass*- free disposal!

          *unfortunately, she tends to throw them back up again later, but at least the mess is outside

          2. Our old Jack Russell twice caught rabbits and gobbled up parts of them before I could get the rest of the carcass away.

            1. Omar once head-butted a fly against the window of the porch door and then ate it. To my knowledge, that is still the only living thing he's ever caught (but not for lack of trying).

    3. We've had/have mice. We had a guy come out and seal up the outside (pretty reasonable, actually) and have been picking them off one by one. I've expanding foamed the obvious routes inside to force them towards my Omaha Beach-like snaptrap fortifications. One challenge is having little kids. I imagine a Cheerio can keep a mouse going for a week or so in a pinch.

      1. The first two weeks we lived in this house, I killed seven mice in the basement. I hired Plunkett's to seal up the house and that solved the problem. The outside situation is something else, though. And in the garage, we get them like crazy.

        1. A mouse (well, it could have been a vole I suppose) once chewed through one of the wiring harnesses inside the engine compartment of my car causing an electrical short that burned out several sensors. I spent 1200 american dollars to fix what one mouse did in probably 25 seconds.

        1. He's a great guy. I've exchanged a few emails with him and he shows up frequently at Tango's blog to talk about the physics of baseball. He specializes in the ball/bat collisions, so Fox showing the slow motion captures of these has to be really interesting. I wonder if he has a connection so he can get more footage for research.

  5. Just saw a tweet that Randy Bush has gotten a three-year extension as Cubs assistant GM. Good for him.

    3. Outstanding. Their coverage of this year's election has been tremendous. Now to go check Literally Unbelievable to see who fell for this one.

  9. Sorry in advance for the ad (not sorry enough to avoid posting it, of course), but Noosa Yoghurt is freaking awesome. If you ever get a chance to eat some, do.

    1. I can back you up on this. It's very, very good. I wish I could get the Peach here, but Strawberry Rhubarb is an acceptable substitute.

      1. Peach might be my least favorite, which is odd, since that's usually among my favorite yogurts. It's still amazing though.

      1. Spoiler SelectShow

          1. I loved the end of Lost. But I thought they stayed true to the characters, so that's a huge advantage over BSG.

            What did you want from Lost? Everything was exactly as it appeared. There you go. All mysteries solved.

            1. I'm not a big "answer all the mysteries!" guy to begin with. I thought most of the season was meandering and pointless, the backstories of the original island residents were weakly supported and juvenile, and the ultimate developments about both the island itself and the "sideways" environment were half-assed, treacly and pandering. If you want to talk about not caring about most characters by the end of something, Lost is as big an offender as anything.

              I have, at this point, a lot of problems with the finale of BSG, but I like most of its full last season overall (starting with "He That Believeth in Me", that is) much more than Lost's final season.

              1. I'll give you the "back stories of the original island residents" part. And I thought the "sideways" stuff took a little too long (meandering and pointless is a pretty harsh way to put it, I'd say), but ultimately everyone was true to themselves, and I still cared about them. Funny how we'd see those so differently.

                1. I'm not talking about just the "sideways" stuff, mind, I mean I found most of the island events of season 6 meandering and pointless, too (i.e. the Temple, most of the stuff on the smaller island).

                  1. I guess the highlights of that season have stuck with me a lot more than the down parts.

                    1. That's fair. That's about how I feel about season 4 of BSG. The Richard episode is probably the only one I like unequivocally from that season of Lost.

                2. C'mon, the backstory of Richard Alpert was one of my favorite episodes of the entire series.

                  Edited to add: Guess I should have read down a couple of comments.

    2. Seeing your reaction to watching BSG make me feel a little better about not having watched it, though I might in the future.

      The few episodes I've seen have never really tempted me to watch Battlestar Galactica in its entirety, though it seemingly sits right in my sci-fi wheelhouse. I don't know what turns me off about it exactly, but I'd rather watch Farscape, Firefly or Star Trek any day if I'm in the mood for a futuristic space-type show.

            2. I agree with that. I quit halfway through season 3.

              When it comes to entertainment, I am a quiter. Once a book or movie gets to the point it can't be redeemed, I move on.

              It drives my wife nuts when I read the first 300 pages of a book and quit with 50 left.

      2. The show has a compelling over-arching plot, but the actual execution of that arc is so misguided that by this point, I don't care about anyone. Not because there's actual nuance to the characters, but because there is no consistency in viewer experience. In one episode we're told to love Character X, the next we hate them, the third we're back to loving them. The acting has consistently gotten worse. Character motivations are non-existent. And the number of times things have been thrown off of desks in an attempt to communicate anger and/or pain through over-acting is truly comical.

        You'd be better served re-watching Firefly like a dozen times.

        1. Heroes did the same thing; heroes became bad guys and vice versa from one season to the next, sometimes I think just for the writers to see if they could do it.

    2. Marlins fans probably thinking "Sure, they fire Ozzie after the Twins lock up Ullger, Vavra, Bruno, Cuellar, and Steinbach."

            2. Red Grooms made the sculpture. His work has always been about examining popular, and current, culture though a playful lens of exaggeration. I'm fairly certain he's aware of irony's place in postmodern art. I'm also fairly certain that he doesn't give a shit about irony's place in his art. Initially I was a bit put off by his involvement, but I've grown to love that crazy sculpture and I'm happy that the Marlins took the risk.

    3. The next Marlins manager needs to be a quiet, calm, steady influence on the team, someone who'll keep the focus on the players rather than seeking the spotlight for himself. I'd suggest Bobby Valentine.

    1. Yeah, not good news for the fine art lithographers in the room. The death of dead-tree media is making it much more difficult for me to get the basic necessities produced for the offset industry.

  13. Open Court on NBA TV is some of the best programming on TV. If MLB TV had a show where old players just made fun of each other and talked about older players I would watch it with pretty much all of my free time.

    1. He threw 57 pitches. Had his first two walks at the AFL, but three more Ks and 4-0 GB-FB ratio.

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