This is their year....

Could it be a sign of the apocalypse? Perhaps. Could it be an early season fluke? Possibly. Could it be for real? Hopefully. The Milwaukee Brewers, for the first time since 1992, are playing good, solid baseball and are in first place. And, they're not just barely in first place, they have a respectable three game lead over the competition. The last time the Brewers had a decent season I was 9 years old and they were still an American League team. That said, I understand it's still early in the season, but there's something to be said for early momentum. I also recognize that the NL central is quite possibly the weakest division in baseball at this point, but it's still first place. I don't think first place has happened since they went to the World Series in 1982. And yes, I will be quite happy to rub it in the face of all my friends and family if the Brewers somehow happen to maintain first place, although I might go easy on the Cubs fans because they are generally worse off than I am (and I have strong familial connections to many of them). The current baseball season is already promising to be an exciting one, and by the all-star break I should have a fairly good idea of whether or not my Brew Crew will say farewell to the rest of the NL central and head straight for the playoffs. And to put the icing on the cake, the Yankees are cellar-dwellers. The baseball gods are smiling favorably on me this season.

By the way, I hope that I offended some of you with my derogatory comments regarding the state of the NL central, and I think you know which specific team(s) I was referring to. I still love you, but I'm sorry that you're all going to get burned this season.

A Campaign for More Exercise

The campaign headquarters for the John Edwards presidential campaign moved in across the street from the coffee shop where I work just a few months ago. On the whole, the members of the campaign seem to be recent political science/law grads who are passionate about John Edwards' platform and probably looking to get more into politics themselves. Many of them regularly come into the coffee shop (sometimes twice a day) to help get them through their 12 hour plus days at the office. Yesterday, a few of the guys invited me to go play football with them because I was getting off work at about the time they were going to play. I decided that, since Melissa had a haircut appointment, I met as well play football instead of sit around at home.

When I got down to the field I did some warm-up stretches because I knew I hadn't exercised those muscles in quite a while, but I had no idea how out of shape those muscles were. The game was great fun, and I even scored a touchdown, but not long after I got home I could already feel my muscles stiffening. Not a good sign. Of course, this morning it got even worse, and I had difficulty driving to and from church because I had a hard time lifting my leg to move it from the accelerator to the brake. Maybe the best way to show me how out of shape some of my muscles are was to pound them to the ground, because I'm really not that old yet. I don't know if the football experience will actually motivate me to exercise more, but the pain was definitely worth the gain (remember those "No Fear" t-shirts). I like to look at the experience as maybe I burned one of our future presidents for that touchdown, and when he or she is in office I can say, "I totally smoked that guy."