Project Miner

I’ve been really wanting new music lately, but have been pretty lazy in getting any.  Jim gave me a list of some hip-hop he was playing in DC that was really good, but I’ve been too lazy to actually download any of it.  Boo.  However, I did pick up two albums a few weeks ago, one of which has gotten an insane amount of play time already.

The one I’ve been digging the most is: Albert Hammond, JR’s album.  I’d describe it as just “rock” or “indie rock”, I guess, since it sounds like it should be in a Zach Braff flick.  It’s good stuff and I’m really glad I took a shot on it.  Not being a music hipster, I wouldn’t have known it existed without reading a review in the Washington Post Express while on the metro in DC.  Yay, a review being right.

The other album I bought was a Cure’s greatest hits album.  For some reason, I’ve been digging The Cure and thought I should get a mix of their stuff.  I probably should have looked up a fan’s list in iTunes, because the greatest hits album was well, just their greatest hits.  Because I’m a donkey, I was expecting it to be more a “here are our good songs”, but it was really just “here are our songs that made the top 40 charts”.  I guess I should have known that from the song list, but I am a pretty casual fan of theirs (friends were super fans, so I know the good stuff, but not by name).  Oh well.

In the last few months, I’ve also gotten a few albums from friends, but for some reason I haven’t given them enough attention to know if I really like them or not.  Matt gave me a Bloc Party album and Tom gave me two Bright Eyes albums.  I should be less lazy and listen to them.

Oh, and finally, Katy and I are finally starting to replenish the albums that were stolen out of her car around xmas time.  Some jerk off got about 10 or 15 albums out of her car, including the latest Dixie Chicks (which I actually really like, and Katy loves) and J5’s Power in Numbers, two Fugazi albums, a Less than Jake album (which Wade replaced for me) and others.  Thieves suck.

Friday for lunch I had a healthy choice frozen meal.  At about 8.00 that night I started getting sick and have done nothing but be sick since.  Judging by what happened to Katy in Colorado, I have/had food poisoning.  No fun at all.  I’m finally thinking of eating something other than ice chips and am so bored from sleeping and watching TV that I’m thinking of going somewhere… though I’m still scared of needing a bathroom.  Ick.  To top it off, the weather looks as if it’s the best day of the year.  Sigh.

It’s amazing how many things get better when I exercise.  Everything seems better right now. 

• I’m sleeping so much better — I feel better rested when I wake up and my body is even waking me up earlier (which was probably a big part of the problem anyway). 
• I’m less lazy at home, cleaning and doing laundry and just generally not being lazy about things I’m usually lazy about (I’m even picking up my PJ’s from the bathroom floor most mornings!). 
• I’m able to concentrate more at work and accomplish the trillion things I have going on right now. 
• I think the only thing I’m not doing better right now is driving, thanks to the sore muscles.  So, get outta the way, Atlanta drivers.

It’s crazy to me how much better everything feels when I’m exercising and eating healthily, yet it’s always so damn hard to start back exercising when I let it go for a while.  I don’t kid myself and think that it’s easy to work out, but once I get going, there is definitely a period where I’m hooked on the feeling.  I hope it lasts longer than usual!

Marlins vs. Braves, 04.15.07

Brrrrr.  They said it was 50+ degrees at game time, but with 20 mph winds.  Add that to the lack of sun because it was so overcast, and it was a cold day at the park.  We brought several layers and a blanket, but were still pretty chilly.  Enough so that Katy couldn’t take it any more and we left after four innings.  The Braves’ half of the third was pretty awesome — they got on the bases when Scott Olsen got wild, then scored a few runs on a little-league looking error and then Chipper launched a 3-run blast deep into the LF bleachers.  Chipper really looks like his timing is great right now, that’s good to see.

It was the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the MLB color barrier.  The celebratory clips of that were really neat, and it was cool to see that people really cared about it.  Even in Atlanta (where John Rocker got standing ovations) the crowd applauded the recaps of milestones in his career when they played on the scoreboard between innings.  Really nice to see. 

The Braves ended up winning 8-4, Hudson is still looking really sharp and keeping the ball down, down, down.  Good stuff.  I guess I can call this a win for me and make my Braves record 3-1, even though I didn’t stay enough for it to be an official game. 

I was too cold and it was too drizzly to take many pictures, but here are some

Braves vs. Marlins, 04.15.07

Nats vs. Braves, 04.12.07

I never did recap the Nats game from Thursday night.  Troy and I went to this one, and it was surprisingly a pitcher’s duel.  The Nats Jason Bergmann was awesome, and John Smoltz threw a really good game as well.  Smoltz went deeper into the game, but gave up two runs in the 7th or 8th (I can’t remember).  The good part about the game was the Nats’ defense finally playing like big leaguers.  I’m a Braves fan first, but I do like the Nats and want to see them compete.  They had a little “drrr” moment on the bases in the first, but that seemed to somehow snap them out of their mental slumber and from then on, they were perfect.  They even made several really nice plays, specifically Ronnie Belliard at second base going deep up the middle and still throwing out the runner (forgot who it was, but it wasn’t a slow poke McCann) and they turned several nice double plays.  I wonder if Guzman will lose his job to injury? 

Troy is bad luck and the Braves lost 2-0.  They made some noise off Cordero in the 9th, but fell short with Scott Thorman striking out to end the game.  Note: Hot Shot actually drew a walk in the 9th.  After this game, I was 2-1 in Braves games and 1-3 in Nats games.  Even though it was against my hometown team, it was nice to see the Nats get another victory under their belts. 

No pics from this game, Donkey Eric forgot the camera.

Another game tonight, thanks to Katy’s brother (John) scoring tickets from a family he worked for yesterday.  Scoring tickets doesn’t even cover it.  These tickets were 7 rows off the field, about three feet down the third base line, before the start of the visitor dugout.  I actually think they were the best seats I’ve ever had, even better than the tix to the Yankees game last year in NY.  They were really close to the action, AND not behind the net.  Stunning views.  One awesome part about being close was hearing the umpire bark at the Nats dugout as they were complaining about some of the pitches he was calling in favor of the Braves in the first inning.  Great stuff.

Game Notes:
The Braves were favorites going into the game, considering they were starting Tim Hudson and the Nats were starting Matt Chico, who apparently made the jump from AA this year.  Hudson performed as advertised and looks set to have an awesome year.  He had a no hitter in the fifth, and left after 7 innings, 3 hits, 7 k’s and no runs.  Great performance.  Chico was affectively wild for most of the game — consistently throwing the ball about 58 feet, but still getting out of trouble.  That is, until everything unraveled in the 5th inning and the Braves blew the game wide open.  Some other random thoughts from the game:

• I’ve rarely seen a game when you can actually tell how much having a solid defensive team matters.  The Braves made tough plays look easy and the Nats made easy plays look tough.  Belliard dropped a fly ball, which really was Kearns’ fault, he had the better angle on the ball and needed to make the play.  “Da Meat Hook” dropped a throw from an infielder (Lopez?).  Generally, they looked lost.
• Schneider is an awesome defensive catcher.  He really did a great job blocking all the balls thrown in the dirt.  And there were probably a dozen of them.
• John Schuerholz?  Genius.  Well, at least this year.  His off-season moves look great already, the bullpen is awesome. 

Katy was pretty tired after working a long day and getting no naps in.  Stupid parasite drains all her energy!  So, we left in the bottom of the 8th (before the Braves scored another 4 runs).  We all had a great time at the game, Katy gave John the low down on calling Francoeur “Hot Shot” and how to heckle (Hot Shot hit a 2-run double and a 3-run home run, haha).

Final Score: Braves 8, Nationals 0.  Ouch.  My Braves record is now 2-0 and my Nats record 0-3.  I’m back at it Thursday night when Jason Bergmann faces John Smoltz.  I like it already.

Pics from tonight:

Braves vs. Nats, 04.10.07

Poor journal, dead for a while.  I had some problems with wordpress being a pain in the arse, so I wasn’t writing in the ole journal, because it was borked and I had to jump through hoops to make it work.  Finally, I bitched to Jol about it and he did the smart thing and RTFM and figured out my problem.  Ah, not being an idiot, that must feel nice.

Anyhows, here’s what has been going on….

Was in DC last week for a workgroup meeting on the new application.  It went really well (I thought), though I am still worn out from all the meetings (8 hours of meetings, four days in a row is painful).  The worst part was I didn’t get a chance to write any code so now I’m behind schedule and having to bust my arse.  Oh well, at least I like the work.  Well, I like the output of the work.

DC outside of work was fun, hung with Thomas sunday night and played video games and tossed the ole bull around.  Saw Jol twice for baseball (once it was more like ice ball, it was probably around freezing with the wind chill). 

I guess this is the first public post about this (mmm, private posts to the journal), but Katy is knocked up.  As Waldner said to his parents when they found out Lynn was pregnant… “Goaaaaaaaaaaal”.  haha, that’s so hilarious.  The little tax write off is due September 26 (ah, stealing Sean’s thunder), but due to the back issues and the need for a planned real deal surgical c-section, he/she (no finding out until it’s yanked out) will be born earlier than that.  We’ve seen pictures and video and all that, but somehow it still hasn’t sunk in yet.  A human will depend on me to stay alive.  Yikes.  Our family has a home on the internet — StoutMuntz.com (and yes, this is awesome because our kids can have name@lastname.com, and if they start acting like donkeys I can enforce rules on their email accounts.  Yeah, yeah, little hackers will surely get past whatever I come up with).

A couple of contractors are coming to the house today to look at the kitchen and start estimating.  Should be interesting. 

What else?  Oh, I’m fat.  “Damn, Phife you got fat.  Yeah, I know it looks pathetic, Ali Shaheed Mohamed’s got me doing calistenics”.  For real, though, I weighed in at 170 lbs last week, which is my heaviest ever.  Shaheed is being replaced my Michael Morris, and my sympathy weight is in trouble. 

Braves 3 – Mets 2

The first game of my 20 game package was this afternoon and I’m 1-0 so far (well, for Braves games, I’m 0-2 in Nats games, but that doesn’t count)!  Game time temperatures were in the 40’s (brrr), but with the sun out, it really ddin’t feel bad at all – I actually took off my sweatshirt for most of the game. 

 The pitching matchup was Orlando Hernandez vs. Kyle Davies and it actually turned out to be a great pitcher’s duel.  Hernandez’s first pitch of the game was jacked into the right field seats by Kelly Johnson, but after that he really settled in and only gave up a couple of hits.  Davies also took a while to settle in, though he didn’t give up any runs until back-to-back homers from Shawn Green and Ramon Castro (I think).  Davies was pretty erratic with his control through the first three or so innings, but he settled in and actually went 6 plus (he got one or two outs in the seventh) and struck out eight Mets while giving up only the two runs in the third.  The Braves finally chased “El Duque” in the 7th and won the game off of Aaron Heilman in the 8th when Brian McCann and Jeff Francoeur hit back-to-back RBI doubles (and of course, Katy was yelling at “hot shot” Francoeur the whole time.  I love that she hates Francoeur).  Wickman closed out the 9th with a quick 1,2,3 inning.  Nice to not have to sit through a shaky 9th when the sun has abandoned you and it’s starting to get cold!

 I didn’t keep score this game, because I had my hands covered the whole time.  I took a few pictures, though most of them didn’t come out so well (my camera doesn’t have great image stabilization and I’m shaky handed.  I realized it has an “action” mode and I’l try that out next time).  I am going to decide on a photo sharing tool (google web, flickr, gallery, etc) and upload the pics soon.

Game 2 of my package will be against the Nats on Thursday.  Hopefully I’m 0-3 in Nats games after then.

[Updated] Pictures of the game are up at my Picasa Web Album:

Braves vs. Mets, 04.08.07