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I wrote two powerful paragraphs that used three insightful links to make an important argument. Then I deleted them.
Have a picture of a cute kid, instead.
Started to feel better. If only I wasn’t so physically tired. I’ll be better tomorrow, though.
I went outside and did something today! This was preceded by a few hours resting in bed. I feel better, for the most part, but I’m just so weary. That’s gotten old already.
Anyway, there was baseball tonight. Auburn is hosting Missouri for a three-game series. The attendance was announced as a sellout, the first of the year.
Blake Austin slides in for Auburn’s second score of the game:
The third base umpire blew a call and the head coach, Sunny Golloway, let him hear about it. So did the fans, for quite some time.
It was a pivotal call and, perhaps, cost Auburn the game. The wrong Tigers won, 4-3. The problems were of the familiar variety. Auburn had four errors and stranded eight.
The great thing about baseball is that they’ll play again tomorrow.
It will rain tomorrow, so today let’s play two!
Freshman Keegan Thompson threw his second consecutive complete game, striking out 10 and scattering four hits while allowing two runs. (So it was a disastrous 5th inning by his standards.) He threw 121 pitches. His 111th pitch was clocked at 91 mph. The kid is unbelievable. I hope they don’t break him.
Auburn won the first game 5-2 to take the series from the visiting Aggies. Thompson came out in the second game and played first base for a while. Auburn was put away easily in the last game of the series, falling 9-0.
So let’s talk fans! This group includes two of the four new Aggie friends we made today. Scroll beyond the photographs. There are things to read below the pretty pictures.
Things to read … because today hasn’t been all about baseball.
International news: Venezuela is likely more important to us than Crimea, though whatever Putin is doing in the home office is interesting. Meanwhile, just common sense suggests that of all the places you could cut the military here, slicing off parts of the navy is an inherently risky strategy.
Venezuela’s foreign minister calls Kerry ‘murderer’
While the West Watches Crimea, Putin Cleans House in Moscow
Obama, Navy Lying To Congress On Carriers: Seapower Chair Rep. Forbes
Journalism items of interest: The lengths people will go to try to prevent reporters from doing their jobs often borders on the absurd. Here are two examples, and correspondence from Great Britain, which has been milling about on the wrong, lost, broken path for a while now, it seems.
New York Police Department Says Its Freedom of Information law Manual Is Confidential
You Can Photograph That Federal Building
Britain is treating journalists as terrorists – believe me, I know
Just stories: The first one is just strange, the kind where you know you don’t know the whole story, where maybe the whole story doesn’t matter so much, so long as the person is OK.
Vestavia Hills woman found alive in trash compactor off U.S. 280
Good Samaritan meets mother of man rescued from burning truck
That last story makes you think “Yeah, sometimes you just need a Marine and two Army veterans around.”
What a lovely evening for a bike ride. I have a ride scheduled for triathlon training — a schedule I am poor at keeping, but here’s a chance to ride — and this is a beautiful day and we’re just that much closer to spring:
But those aren’t the only signs we’ll see:
No problem. This is probably a bridge. There’s one down there. And I’ve gotten over bridges on closed roads before. Besides, going around means another five or 10 miles. While I’m not concerned about the miles, I am on a schedule, and the sun is growing weary in the western sky, so press on …
OK then, they’ve adequately sealed off the road with heavy machinery, as is the style here. This particular piece of awesome construction power fills the entire road. I’ll just walk my bike around on the shoulder, then, and ease over the old (or new) creek bridge. This is going to be a problem. There’s no road there:
How big of a problem? Can’t jump that distance:
Let’s be honest. I’m not jumping any distance.
The problem became that I had to get from this side to that side. And while getting down to the creek bed from myside wasn’t difficult, getting back up to the road was a challenge. On one side the opposite back was vertical, and covered in underbrush. On the other side it was almost vertical, and covered in pumpkin-sized erosion rocks.
The thing is I usually, for better or worse, come to a conclusion about things very quickly. I sat there on the side of the road for a long few minutes trying to figure this out. I had to get down, over and back up, carrying my bike. I’m as much a cyclocross rider as I am a jumper, which is to say not at all. Ultimately I went up the near-vertical side with large rocks, pulling myself and 17 pounds of aluminum and carbon with me. Suddenly, spandex didn’t seem that cool and cycling shoes didn’t seem that practical.
But I made it. Didn’t hurt myself. Managed to get scratched by a tree limb and got a dusty knee. Slowed me down enough that I ended up racing the sun home, which was not my intention. And I missed the start of the baseball game. But I got in 30 miles. And Auburn beat Texas A&M 4-0 to start SEC play.
Even when the roads are closed you can have a good day.
Sometimes life is so hard to figure out when you’re a big kid:
There was a red-tailed hawk floating over the baseball stadium for a few seconds this afternoon. I’d never noticed how the underside of their wingspan is camouflaged against the right kind of sky.
Another one of those shots is going to be one of the new rotating banners on the blog.
Oh, the game itself? Auburn took a 5-2 lead into the top of the ninth, but Mercer rallied to tie the score in the top of the ninth. So, at 5-5, Jordan Ebert led off for Auburn in the bottom of the ninth. He singled to left and then stole second. A one-out sacrifice bunt moved him to third. Two more runners got on to load the bases and that brought Ryan Tella to the plate:
On the eighth pitch of the at bat Tella pushed a ball just beyond the shortstop. The ball went into left and Ebert slid home uncontested to celebrate:
Tigers win, 6-5. The highlights:
After the game I completed a training brick. They’re called that because of how your legs feel, right? I did a quick 17 mile ride and a slower three mile run. Nothing like 90 minutes of taxing your cardio to give you perspective, or lack of perspective. I find I can’t think of much of anything but the next breath.
I did ponder on how my bike got so slow. You take a few days off and the thing forgets how to move at a respectably medium speed. And I also managed to notice and marvel and wonder why my hip hurt for the first half-mile. But I could not figure out, for the next mile, why the stretching I was doing didn’t help my calves. Turns out I was flexing the wrong way, so …
I do not know what is happening.
