Well, I'm on the record in an earlier post prior to the start of the season that my Rays would be 83-79 and in 3rd place. Well, as I write this, the Rays sit at 78-49, a .614 winning percentage, tracking to win 100 games, and be the only representative from the AL East in the playoffs. They have the BEST RECORD IN BASEBALL (assuming Minnesota holds off the Angels, they are winning 5-0), and it's almost SEPTEMBER!!! The Rays' magic number is smaller than the number of games they have left to play!

Take THAT, RedSox Nation!

1) Papelbon was a tool for saying on the record that he thought he should get the close. It was Rivera's game to close, Papelbon knew it, Francona knew it, only Francona actually handled it correctly.
2) YankeeFan was way past toolness in the way they treated the Red Sox players and families in the parade. Crass, unacceptable, and vomitous.
3) Terry Francona was a class act, stem to stern. From the way he took Jeter and A-Rod out in the middle of innings so they could take a bow, to the way he put Rivera in mid-inning so he could walk in to his music (though that one bit him hard, because it turned out he needed more work from F. Rodriguez…), to the way he very respectfully and gingerly handled the starting pitcher from a heated division rival that had just thrown 104 pitches just 2 days earlier) and limited him to 14 pitches…
4) Dioner Navarro almost had a disaster of a game, with 2 Ks and a wild throw into center trying to gun down a baserunner, but redeemed himself with a GREAT throwout of another for the 3rd out in the 9th off the strikeout from Rivera, and the walk, and the clutch base hit in the 15th.
5) Longoria looked like the little kid he is, having a great time. It was great to see him, on the slo-mo replay of the double, crack into a smile before the ball passed 3rd base… He's gonna be a great player for a long time. He had volunteered to go in and pitch for Kaz, if Kaz needed relief, he pitched in high school.
6) How about JD Drew, man? Monster game… He also volunteered to pitch.
7) Pittsburgh's center fielder had a monster game too… (He gunned Navi down at the plate, though Navi had just barely beaten the tag on the replay…. )
8) Roy Halladay was completely unhittable.
9) Josh Hamilton had an All-Star experience for the ages… How many people have EVER hit the back wall of the bleachers at Yankee Stadium? I bet less than five.
10) Dan Uggla has got to be in a very deep cavern somewhere in the Everglades right now; very VERY drunk. That was one of the most pathetic performances I've ever seen in a baseball game...
11) Youkilis looked good, should have been in the game longer.
12) Zambrano's loopy slow curveball at ManRam was really funny; wish I knew the history.
13) Was the most intense, well-played all star game I've ever seen.
14) Softball game with legends and celebs on Monday was a hoot. Even with Kenny Mayne.

(5/2/08) In my opinion, we're about 3 months from the start of a noticeable recovery.

Here's my theory:

What the heck is causing gas to be so expensive?
Nope, it's not Exxon and Shell raping us with insane profit margins. Yes, the profit dollar numbers are huge, but it represents only 7.5%-9% of their revenue. 9% net profit is not at all excessive. Compare it to Microsoft's if you don't believe me.

So if it's not them, who is it? Is it the Arabs withholding supply?
Nope. Of our imported oil, only one of the top 5 countries is Arab; Saudi Arabia at #2. Canada is #1, and Mexico, Nigeria, and Venezuela round out the top 5; which account for 70% or so of our total imports. It's not a supply issue.

Is it a rising demand issue?
Nope. 9 straight months of diminishing demand. Are YOU doing more driving now that gas is $3.60?

So what is it?
Well, a small part is that we're stockpiling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, buying about 700 million barrels to top it off, and building more. This is good long term thinking. But the big offender?

THE OIL COMMODITIES MARKET.

It's speculators, who are buying up oil futures as a hedge against inflation.

Where does the inflation come from?
A weakened dollar.

Why is the dollar weak?
Because the Fed has been cutting the Federal Funds rate steadily since June of 2006.

Why would they do that when they know it weakens the dollar and causes inflation?
To strengthen the lending market, which collapsed in the sub-par lending bust last year. (Yep; it's those idiots that gave HUGE mortgages to people who couldn't afford it, and it's the brokerage houses that packaged a ton of subprime mortgages into securities that tanked when everyone stopped paying their mortgage.)

What makes you think this is a bubble that can burst suddenly?
Well, look at basic economics. Plenty of supply, 9 months of diminishing demand. This scenario should in and of itself lower prices. The math just doesn't work. The demand curve doesn't nearly support these exhorbitant price levels. Nor does surrent supply, seasonal variation, or any other factor. It's an artificial floor; JUST LIKE INTERNET STOCKS WERE EXPERIENCING IN THE LATE 90s.

And you know what happened there. *pop*

It's a house of cards, waiting for a catalyst.

So, what's gonna fix it?
The Fed has had enough. This last Federal funds rate cut is the last one you're gonna see. They are going to start raising interest rates. That will cause the dollar to strengthen in global markets. And when that happens, the guys currently going long in sweet crude futures are gonna jump ship like rats, which will cause oil futures to plummet, which will in turn cause pump prices to follow suit 30-45 days later. I suspect a price point as low as $55-60 a barrel is what the market *should* be supporting, which translates to roughly $1.85 gas. If that happens, and gas is cheap again, Exxon's not going out of business, they are still gonna pull their 9%; just on lower revenue.

The rest of us will love it though. When gas is cheap, people buy stuff. Consumer confidence and consumer spending are THE ENGINE that drives the bus. When Joe Six Pack is comfortable spending money, and also BORROWING money, then everything will snap into shape. Once the dollar gets stronger, the credit market will loosen. When the credit market loosens, the housing market will EXPLODE. There is a ton of pent-up demand for housing, but people won't pull the trigger because nobody is lending unless you have an 800 Beacon score, and the sub-pars are under a lot more scrutiny now. (As well they should be since this whole thing is their fault!) When housing picks up, the market for everything that houses need picks up too.

Look for a nice Christmas season.

OK, here's your chance to just sit there and try not to laugh. I dare ya. Go ahead. Try to not laugh. This is my little girl Abby (see the top right of this blog for what she looks like now... She was about 8-1/2 months old when this video was shot... )

Or: "What I Did With My Long Weekend Before Jury Duty..."

I spent the weekend of April 11th at The Newport at Miami Beach Guitar Festival http://www.newportguitarfestivalmiamibeach.com/homepage.html

I shot a ton of video! Below is a link to my playlist, there's about ten videos there now, and it will grow pretty much daily as I get them processed. Paul Asbell and Al Petteway are both current/former Swannanoa Gathering (http://www.swangathering.com) instructors, for those of you familiar with the "Gathering" that I go to every year (Al Petteway is the Guitar Week coordinator).

PLAYLIST
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1167F746185EC689

• Least expensive of the custom luthier guitars: $3400
• Most expensive: a Benedetto archtop - $40,000
• Most expensive one I played: $33,000 (Ryan Dragonfly with custom Deco period inlay - video forthcoming)
• Personal Favorites:
  Oriskany's parlor model, Sugita Kenji, Kevin Ryan, Erich Solomon, Schenk, Charis (looks, not sound), Benedetto, Linda Manzer (Pat Metheney's luthier), MacPherson, and Brunner Guitars (check out their Outdoor line; it comes apart at the neck to go into a REALLY teeny case, goes back together, and doesn't go out of tune significantly! http://www.brunner-guitars.com/flash/) and they sound great! They are $800-$2000, but aren't really "custom handbuilts", they are more factory-oriented, though you can custom order one. A bit pricey for the sound, but unmatchable utility!

The average guitars in the custom luthier area ran between $8,000 and $12,000. There were some $2700-$3500 S-series Breedloves that were every bit as nice as the five-figure custom stuff.

Why does a luthier charge $6000 for a custom guitar? Well, *some* of it is materials; for example it costs a luthier about $3000 to buy enough Brazilian Rosewood to do a bookmatched back and sides. There were no guitars with Brazilian that were under about $8,000. On average, from the folks I talked to about it, a $4000 guitar is about a grand in materials, and the rest is labor; they literally can take months to complete, and hundreds of man-hours. A luthier turning out 12 guitars a year (like Oriskany Guitars,

(3/26/08) I gotta tell you, I'm geeked for the Rays this year. I have to go on record before Opening Day with my predictions. So, I'm being bold this year:

Record: 83-79 (.512)
Place: 3rd, 16 games out of first, and 11 games behind the 2nd place Yankees.

I've seen predictions as high as 88 wins, which is not unthinkable; but it would mean that Kaz would have to be healthy all year, and Rocco Baldelli would also have to have a great year, and that the top 3 in the rotation (Kazmir, Shields, Garza) would all have to win more than 15 games. I think Troy Percival is good for 8-12 wins and 45 saves, Reyes is good for 5 wins and 10-15 saves in a long-close and setup role, E-J will probably win 8-12, and if Sonnanstine, Howell, and Hammel can combine for 10-15 wins, we're there. I think CC is a safe bet for .290, 40-55 steals; I think Evan Longoria should have made the starting Opening Day roster. He's only going to be down in Durham long enough so that his arbitration and free agent eligibility clock doesn't start this year. A CRIME, I tell you. Bonehead move, coach, you probably cost him Rookie of the Year...

The Rays have the biggest impact on the AL East of any team. Why? 23.4% of their games are against the Yankees and the Red Sox. Well, guess what? Our record against the Yanks in the last 40 games? 20-20. They fear our bats, and they don't have the pitching they had last year. The Sox are a powerhouse for sure, but I ain't afraid of no Yankees...

So here's the thing... The latest polling out today shows McCain vs Obama is a 51-41 victory for Obama, and McCain vs Clinton is a 50-30 victory for McCain. PLUS; today's Gallup poll shows that if Clinton somehow back-doors the nomination (super delegate persuasion or whatever), that the Obama supporters will go not to Hillary, but to McCain, especially in the black community.

This debacle could well be the end of the Democratic party as we know it.

Just give it up, Hillary. Go get your divorce, get a less cynical campaign staff, and get a less "good ole boy", politics-as-usual attitude, be a good Senator for 4 more years, you're practically undefeatable in the People's Republic of New York; and try again in 2012.

Wow. I haven't blogged since April of 2007?? Crap. Sorry. Well, you all left, so never mind. Anyway, I resolve to blog more this year.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays took it to the New York Yankees last night by the score of 10-8; by scattering 15 hits, including two home runs, but is the Rays' sudden fearsom offense this season the story? No. A-Rod is the story. Yeah, sure, he jacked two home runs. the 2nd one in the 9th inning was a monster. But it wasn't enough. The Rays won. Nobody mentions how Shawn Camp came in to pitch the 7th inning; an event that has usually spelled the Rays' downfall this year (opponents hitting .385 against him), and got Jeter to hit into a double play, and fanned A-Rod to end the inning! Nobody mentions how Rocco Baldelli stole a base right under the pitcher's nose while he was walking behind the mound in the 7th. Nobody mentions the Howitzer arm of Elijah Dukes, who had gunned down two runners easily, but got bad calls both times. Nobody mentions Al Reyes going to 7 for 7 in save opportunities this season. Nobody mentions that the hapless Rays just flat whooped up on the Yankees. The game was not as close as the score.

Some things to note when comparing the $200 million plus payroll Yankees to the lowly $25 million Rays:

• Team batting average: Rays .272 (3rd in AL), Yankees .286 (1st in AL)
• Home Runs: Rays 25 (2nd in AL), Yankees 26 (1st in AL)
• Runs Scored: Rays 102 (2nd in AL), Yankees 116 (1st in AL)
• Slugging Percentage: Rays .453 (2nd in AL), Yankees .454 (1st in AL)

The Rays are a #2 starter and one intimidating setup reliever from being a very scary team. They are among the league's best in most offensive categories, with a very young and talented core nucleus of players.

So, OK, props to A-Rod for the great April. Big whoop. He's not even gonna be a Yankee next year, so who really cares? Don't deny the boys from the 'Trop our day in the sun. Go home, Yankeefan!!!

From British newspaper TimesOnline (UK):

From WENN News:

Former US Vice President Al Gore to set to receive an honorary International Emmy Award for his contribution to television. Gore, 58, whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars last month <despite being loaded with bad science - PT>, will accept the Founders Award at a ceremony in New York City in November. The organization's president Bruce Paisner says, "We in the media industry are honored that one of the world's leading political figures has joined our global community of broadcasters."

One is forced to wonder if he will also receive a "Webby" award; having invented the thing, after all...

(3/26/07) Roger Goodell, the rookie NFL commish, is about to announce a new conduct code for NFL players. Personally, I think that no matter how harsh it is; it's not harsh enough.

Playing in the NFL is a privilege reserved for only the most elite athletes in the world. With it come the trappings of fame and wealth, and also the burden of responsibility to the team and the community. You look at the Tank Johnson case; he's in jail now for violating probation on a weapons charge, and Pacman Jones; who is a walking example of why the overhaul is needed, with TEN run-ins with the law, and you can understand the odd separation here. I'll get right out with it, here's what I think it should be for arrests:

• Strike one: 4 game ban. Everyone makes mistakes, but you shouldn't at this level. You should know better. If your culture somehow demands that you spend every night till 4AM in a nightclub, you can damned well behave yourself.


• Strike two: 1 year ban. Your salary cap hit for the year comes off your team's responsibility, so they can sign someone to replace your thug ass for the year, or permanently, should they so desire.


• Strike three: Lifetime ban. You're done. No more clubs, no more dubbed Hummers. Your team gains your entire contract's cap hit number back, and they are entitled to your entire signing bonus back.

Why just arrests, and not convictions? Why no waiting for due process? Here's why. People rarely, if ever, get arrested for NO REASON. If you get arrested, you did something to make the officer consider your conduct suspect. Even if you didn't commit a crime, your punk ass was sitting there mouthing off, or your posse was causing trouble. Either way, it's on you. And in any event, being there in the first place is probably a violation of your contract's code of conduct.

I don't think pro athletes deserve any better than I would get on my job; if I got arrested, I'd be fired before it went to trial. So would you, probably.

Playing in the NFL is a privilege, not an entitlement; and they should take back the luster and prestige the league used to command. No team should put up with those who would tarnish the league's image. Like it or not, kids use NFL players as role models. The league used to hace a code of conduct that demanded that those in the fraternity earn it through their good conduct as well as their play. If teams stopped taking risks on conduct problem children, and pushed the message down into the college ranks that it's no longer tolerated, then maybe people will start behaving better from the beginning.

So, it's getting to be Swannanoa time. The posse is growing this year with three rookies; my good friend Jim is going, my brother in law Bobby is going, and my father-in-law has a friend that is coming!

What? I didn't tell you about Swannanoa? Well, OK. It's a folk-arts camp that takes over Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC every summer. (Swannaona is just NE of Asheville). Here's the Gathering website. What's it like there? Well, it moved me to write a song, called God Is Here, that explains a lot. another outstanding accounting is from my friend Mark Easley, who I met my first year there. This is his diary of one day at Swannanoa:

---

My Swannanoa Diary 2006

We always have some incredible days up at Swannanoa. Some people asked
me to write down the description of a particular day I was talking about
so they could review it again. Here it is.

Thursday August 3rd, 2006
Started at 9:00am Thursday, finished at 4:00am Friday.

• 1) Ray Chesna taught me how to play the guitar in A#.
• 2) Brooks Williams and my friends created an environment in his class where I could sing a new song and find out just how deep that song
  really was for me.
• 3) I had lunch with a bunch of good friends I only see once a year, and I realized that Swannanoa is like a high school reunion where the assholes don't show up.
• 4) Muriel Anderson gave me a songwriting tip, and fifteen minutes later I had an outline for a new song called "I Don't Want to Know", and it is going to be a good one.
• 5) Muriel Anderson became the first person to sign my guitar, followed shortly by Al Petteway and Eric Garrison. (Doug Orr signed it the next day.
• 6) I learned "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" banjo style on the guitar.
• 7) I had dinner with a person I had traded emails with but never met in person. John Tosco is a Beatle freak just like me, and I look forward to many jams with him.
• 8) At that same dinner, as so often happens here, I made a new friend. Tom is a Hoosier who teaches at Rose Hulman institute.
• 9) At the open mic, my brother Steve and his friend Paddy wrote and sang me a love song.
• 10) My brother said "I made you cry in front of all your friends." I said, That's okay, you made all my friends cry in front of me."
• 11) Joanne and I sang my song "Wasn't Meant to Be" out in front of the beer tent. For the pure joy of it, we sang it again, each time joined by more of our friends, 5 times in a row. The last time, our new friend Brooks Williams joined us on the guitar. He ran to get his guitar so fast we decided he was a new breed, "guitar retriever".
• 12) My friend Jeff asked me to play one of my songs I did last year, called "The Broken Record Song", and he knew all the words.
• 13) I joined one of the wonderful song circles <This is Mark with me and my posse!! - PT> and listened to all of our talented songwriters, and I was especially pleased to see my old friend Eric Garrison break out his guitar.
• 14) The Baughman Factor kicked in, so Steve and I and a bunch of other people screamed Beatles tunes till we dropped at around 4:00am. We came up with an alternative to the circle of 5ths. We call it a fifth in the circle.

If any one of these things happened on a normal day, I would consider it a pretty good day, wouldn't you? Thanks to everybody who helped make it happen.

Best regards,
Mark Easley
www.goldhat.net

---

...to make this necessary. This is a picture of one of the automatic sprinkler heads on the ceiling in my hotel room!!! (click it; it grows.)

In other words, DON'T HANG STUFF HERE, YOU IDIOTS; THERE'S A CLOSET LESS THAN 10 FEET FROM YOU!

Sheesh. I mean, really. Think of all the money they must have had to spend to make signs for the entire hotel chain because some goober in Oklahoma or somewhere tried to hang their clothes from the sprinkler head (which is 9 feet of the floor, by the way!!) and soaked a whole hotel down.

Here's your sign. Literally.

So, this is pretty cool. I never blogged from an airport before, so I thought I would try it. I'm on my way to Houston for some ProLiant c-class blade training. Should be a fun time. Y'all be cool, OK? I'll be checking in a lot this week...

• Only 32% of the 1089 polled in a recent CNN survey are in favor of sending more troops to Iraq.
• Only 31% of those polled in the same survey say that they think sending more troops to Iraq will help the situation.

PDF of poll data

...And I want everyone who reads this blog (yes, both of you) to stop for a moment. Think about the people in your life that you love, and that love you. Have you told them today that you love them? No? What’s stopping you?

When my best friend Mikey died 7 years ago, our parting words the last time I saw him, some 1.5 hours before he died, were “I’ll talk to you tomorrow”. Well, tomorrow never came. But, Mikey and I knew how each felt about the other. When my dad died last March, I was at peace, because I made sure he knew I loved him, and I knew he loved me. His last words to me were “Don’t smoke. I’m not kidding, either, this shit is for real.”, but we’d grown closer in his last 2 years than we ever had, and we were able to express our love for each other openly. I’ve been very lucky; everyone I lost knew how much I loved them.

Can you say that?

Are you pissed at your brother for putting a cigarette hole in your couch, or holding a grudge against an in-law for some horrific flatware misalignment incident from Thanksgiving in 1967? There are a lot of you out there who are not talking to someone important for something really stupid. Fix it. Life is too short.

Besides, it’s much easier on the soul to forgive, to love, to smile, and to give than it is to fester and burn. It’s OK to rant about stuff, as you may have read here in posts past. But, when it counts, you need to love. So do it. You know you can.

And even for the mundane stuff, you’re too busy, you’re uncomfortable saying it, you’re too reserved, well put your man pants on, and say it. Let’s practice.

I love you.

There, now, was that so hard?

It’s Christmas, so it’s the easiest time of year to do this sort of thing; you can break it in with everyone else on the emotional bunny slope. But do it.

Tomorrow might not come.

May you all have a joyous, merry, and healthy Christmas. And if you’re Jewish, then a blessed and joyously happy Chanukah to you! Let the depths of your love demonstrate to everyone who you really are.

So, here’s my random list of annoyances for the day:

• “Happy Holidays” – I’m telling ya; this PC crap is gonna put me on the roof with a Magnum... “Happy Holidays”. How about Merry Christmas? And if you’re not a practicing Christian, and you’re offended by that; I’m more than happy to wish you a happy whatever applied. Happy Chanukah, a Kwazy Kwanzaa (which isn’t even remotely a religious holiday), or whatever sacred or secular holiday you’re celebrating at the moment. But don’t sanitize my season be distilling and homogenizing it into “Happy Holidays”. Peh. In your efforts to not offend anyone, you’ve offended me, and probably hundreds of thousands of traditional holiday-celebrating folk like me. I certainly think Chanukah deserves its due alongside Christmas, as they are both very significant religious holidays, but not at the expense of their individuality.
• City Codes Enforcement – A neighbor of mine is going through a ridiculous battle with the city Codes Enforcement bureau, because of his fence. He lives on the corner of a cul-de-sac, and his house faces the inside of the cul-de-sac, not the street, like my house does. So, tactically, the side of his house faces the street. He erected a gorgeous (and expensive) white 8’ fence that goes all around his side and back yards, and the bulk of it borders my property. I liked it so much I paid for the materials for the portion of the fence that borders me. Anyway, Codes Enforcement decided that the part of his house that faces the same way my house faces is the front of his house, rather than the side; and code prohibits and 8’ fence in your front yard that is in front of the house-line. So, he had to remove a good portion of it, and he’s in a big battle with them, even though he’ also received tickets for having things in his *actual* front yard, so they can’t make up their mind about what is front and what is side. Ultimately, he’ll probably get a variance, but he’ll have to shell out several hundred dollars for the privilege. Which is what they want anyway, I suppose.