Month: July 2011

Hope’s Favorite Night? Ribs Night

So far, Hope has been really good with food.  There have been only a few things she doesn’t like, including eggs, ketchup and barbecue sauce.  Hope will even refuse to eat Montgomery Inn sauce, which to The Civee, is like a knife through the heart, as every Cincinnatians blood is 1/16th Montgomery Inn sauce.

But we can now scratch barbecue sauce off the list of things Hope won’t eat.  Tonight, we were having ribs (along with corn and green beans) and before we knew it, Hope was dominating the ribs.  Midway through the meal, we got gutsy and offered her some barbecue sauce.  She tried it, her face lit up, and all she wanted was more sauce.

I should probably mention that I made the sauce.

I’ve made ribs several times over the past few summers.  Each time, I also made my own sauce.  While always good, each time before tonight, something was off.  Whether the sauce was too watery or the ribs the wrong consistency, I was never fully happy with the result.  Until tonight.  The sauce was perfect (despite me having to make a vinegar substitution) and even though they were a little charred on the outside, the meat on the ribs fell off the bone.  And, as I mentioned, Hope loved them.

I started cooking the ribs around 4:00 and we ended up eating around 7:15.  Both The Civee and I think Hope had more of our ribs than we did.  Thankfully, even though we (with Hope’s assistance) polished off the ribs, there’s a lot more sauce left over.

King Tom1 Comment

The Yankees’ Original Hideki

The summer of 1997 was one of the last in my life which I’d consider carefree. I was between my sophomore and junior years of college. Much like this summer, it was a hot and humid one.  I worked two jobs, one in a restaurant, and the other at King Classic’s lawfirm.  I went to a lot of Yankees games that summer (that year was the first we had the Sunday Plan) and I believe I caught most or part of every game I didn’t attend on TV or the radio.  Most days, I’d go to lunch with King Classic, and on the ride, we’d listen to whatever Yankees discussion was going on on WFAN.

That summer, the city was abuzz over Hideki Irabu, a Japanese pitcher hailed as that nation’s Roger Clemens.  Irabu’s NPB team had dealt him to the Padres, but Irabu would only play for one team- the Yankees.  He was acquired by the Yankees and expected to be the greatest pitcher ever.  Even though he was dominant in his first MLB start against Detroit, the proclaimed superstar stumbled, displaying a bad attitude and all-too hittable stuff.  Still, he had great marketing, selling out his first few starts and having a number of t-shirts on sale at the Stadium memorabilia stands (I still have two, although the Irabu poster I owned had to be thrown out due to water damage).

Irabu went back and forth from The Bronx to Columbus that summer, but actually made the Yankees’ starting rotation in 1998.

In the early months of ’98, Irabu was the teams’ most dependable starter. In a year where injuries threatened the team early on, he kept a sub-3.00 ERA through July, and didn’t get a loss until May 30.  It looked as if the Yankees had the pitcher they expected to get the year before. And unlike in ’97, where he seemed not to care, in 1998, he was pitching like he had something to prove.  Irabu even incited a bench-clearing brawl against the Blue Jays when he charged home plate after hitting Shannon Stewart with a pitch.

Starting in late ’98, Hideki turned back into a pumpkin and floundered throughout ’99 before being dealt away to Montreal, and then ending his career in Texas. Irabu attempted a comeback a few years ago, but it didn’t work out.

Irabu’s name was in the news today, and not for a good reason- the former Yankee was found dead in California.  You never like to read stories like that, especially when it turns out he left a family behind.

Sure, it’s a sad story, and I’m sorry for his family.  But ever since hearing the news earlier today, all I’ve been thinking about was a hot summer when my biggest concern was whether the Yankees would win that day.

King Tom7 Comments

Before the Spill

Hope is getting a lot better at doing things (well, some things) on her own.

Lately, she’s been working on drinking from a cup.  She’s finally got the two-hands thing down. And even though she spilled a little tonight, she now knows to slowly tilt the cup towards her, rather than just dumping the whole thing.

 

King Tom3 Comments

Fußball Schadenfreude

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t care much for any level of football.  My feeling for the sport has evolved from apathy to distaste.  Which is kind of tough for me considering I’m one of the handful of people in my city who doesn’t pay attention to the local college team.

Growing up, I disliked football because the start of games meant that summer was nearing an end, as was baseball season (the Yankees didn’t have real postseason prospects until my junior year of high school) and it was time to go back to school.  And sure, now that I’m older (and the Yankees have gotten better), baseball season lasts longer and there’s more for me to do in the fall, yet I still don’t care much for the game.

Last week, someone mentioned that high school teams resumed practice recently and all I could feel was “oh great, here we go again.”  But then I realized that two factors might make this fall bearable: the labor issues in professional football, which may endanger the start of the season, and the corruption involving the college team, which will hamper how they do next season.  (I don’t pay much attention to news involving football, so I apologize if my news is wrong or out-of-date).

I’m sure that either of these two factors might make the fall miserable for some.  And for that, well, I’m kinda sorry.  But honestly, I don’t care.  I plan on watching baseball until late October (or early November, because the baseball season is nearly as long as the basketball season) and after that, I have a bunch of Yankees DVDs to keep me occupied until Spring Training.

King Tom

Bandwidth Hogging

On Saturday, it will have been three weeks since I got my new phone. One of the reasons I got it at this point was Verizon’s (then) impending switch to bandwidth caps for new customers. I signed up under the old plan and have an unlimited data plan.

I checked my usage today and I’m up to 1.8 GB of data used. The Incredible 2 is not one of those fancy 4G phones (and so far, I haven’t felt like I’m missing anything) so I’m not exactly streaming Netflix on it, but I am watching the occasional YouTube video, downloading a Weezer song here and there and listening to some online radio. Actually, listening to the radio is what’s been using most of that bandwidth.

Even if I have a lot of my own music on the phone, it still is entertaining to listen to something different. Back in college, I had one of the original versions of Real player and would listen to stations from around the world. Now, it’s pretty much the same thing, except through my phone.

Overall it’s nice to have something to get my money’s worth out of my data plan.

If you read this and you’re thinking, “it sounds like he’s writing this just to blog about something,” well, you’re mostly right.

King Tom

Blogging From the Incredible

This entry is more of a test than anything else.

Last week, I got a new phone, a Droid Incredible 2. The phone replaces the old LG VU (pronounced voo) I sported over the last two years (okay, technically 22 months).

The VU was one of the first iPhone knockoffs. But it was slow, had horrible battery life and the technology was pretty obsolete for 2004.

I am not an Apple person, and have a natural affinity for Google. So it was a foregone conclusion that my next phone would be some type of Android. But I have to admit that the Incredible is (pardon the expression) incredible.

I still have a lot of learning to do (the phone came with three different maps programs and I’m still trying to figure out what each does). But it’s nice to have a phone that doesn’t take ten minutes to open up a program. I’m amazed at all the things I can do with the phone. And it’s nice to be able to blog from the phone.

Who knows…if I can figure out things to write about, I just may start blogging more frequently.

King Tom3 Comments

Moving in Circles

It always seems like Hope is doing (or saying) something new.  This morning, she discovered the addictive power of getting dizzy.  And I think I caught her saying the word “ball.”

 

For the record, Hope knows more than 20 words.  According to her speech therapist, any word she can sign or attempt to say in association with an action or thing consistently is a word she knows.  Other favorite words of hers include mama, dada and Yankees.

King Tom2 Comments