Baseball Season is Here...

* Sweet. I don't really count the abbreviated Red Sox-A's series in Japan that technically served as the season opener. The fact that both teams resumed spring training after those games seemed to devalue (?) those games. In any case, tonight's Braves-Nats opener was a great start to the season. From the debut of Nationals' Park, to the crowd roundly booing President Bush as he threw out the first pitch, to Ryan Zimmerman's walk-off bomb to end the evening, a fitting start to the season. Here's hoping that VT's own Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Dustin Moseley and, perhaps, Nick Adenhart, can help the Angels weather the early months sans John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar. After all, with Peter Angelos entering his 15th year as principal owner of the Orioles, my childhood favorite will likely offer few moments to celebrate.

* It was fascinating to see the reaction of the crowd at Nationals' Park to President Bush throwing out the first pitch juxtaposed with his throwing out the first pitch during the World Series in 2001, shortly after 9/11. The hope, strength, leadership, resilience, goodwill and potential that seemed evident to me in again watching that moment have, over the last six and a half years, been squandered, resulting in the president's being roundly booed by the DC crowd this evening. A microcosm of the judgment that surrounds the current administration and the challenges the candidates for the presidency face in the coming months and years.

Intentions...

I don't actually believe that the ramblings in this blog will ever have faithful readers, beyond the occasional perusal by my loving wife. And that was surely not the intent behind initiating this blog. I'm simply engaging in some random writing, providing an outlet for various observations and indignations reverberating in my head, attempting to utilize larger words than required in sentences, all in a simple to use and presumably perpetual venue.

I have to admit, this has been a somewhat more difficult exercise than I anticipated. It takes a good deal of effort to sit down each day and record thoughts in new and imaginative ways. Which, I imagine, is why so many writers record their thoughts in formulaic fashion, utilizing familiar gimmicks to serve as the scaffolding around the original snippets of thought. Nonetheless, those bloggers and writers who post day after day, particularly those who do so as a hobby or alternate pursuit beyond their day job, impress me greatly.

Clearly, I drifted away from posting in this forum for an extended period of time. I'm not entirely sure that these two postings will be the start of another extended run. But, a dumping of my consciousness seemed to be worthy of a few minutes this evening. It's interesting to me that, as I'm getting older, my interests seem to be expanding into a greater number of areas. However, the intensity of that interest is highly variable and fluctuating, with no discernible pattern or motivation. Sports do not hold my interest with the same degree, mostly serving as background noise as I read, research, or observe other things. Then again, I'm cutting this off to devote my full attention to the final 16 seconds of tonight's Lakers-Wizards game. So maybe I'm not evolving as much as I think I am...

Immersion in the Moment...

I enjoy a good deal of the material that bloggers like Big Daddy Drew and Will Leitch post, both on Kissing Suzy Kolber, Deadspin, the New York Times, etc. I enjoy the comedic eloquence, the immature yet unapologetic viewpoints, and the caricatures of various athletes and sports figures. In the case of the above mentioned writers, occasionally they venture beyond a simple sporting event and embed a shred of serious writing, moreso in the case of Leitch than Drew. Drew recently made one of those rare ventures beyond the standard with his latest post on Deadspin. Very enjoyable and, beneath the initial recollections of concerts attended, bagels eaten, and coitus engaged, is a relatively poignant commentary on the fact that, too often, people (most definitely including myself, as I am consistently guilty of this) tend to care more about their perception by others rather than their own belief in a cause or enjoyment of a moment. As Drew notes, getting "into it" is a state that should be sought more often. Good stuff.