The looks on the opposition's faces are well worth the price of admission:
From Dan Savage the week before last:
Is everyone in the Republican Party a closeted homosexual?
—Ken Mehlman's Out Now
Everyone except Ken Mehlman and Ben Quayle.
Of course, this simply isn't true. Other Republican leaders have come out as well.
The 30-park Geas added only one notch this year: Fenway Park, last Saturday. I figure, if I only go to one baseball game this year, I might as well go somewhere I really want to go. Until Saturday I hadn't gone to a baseball game in a while—I've missed it.
The game. Sigh. Both teams, Toronto and Boston, played like Cubs, for 11 innings. The Sox finally won 5-4, which is always good when they get out of the second inning up 4-1.
Great B&B, too: the Newbury Guest House on Newbury Street just a few blocks from the park. It's one of those quirky neighborhood hotels built out of century-old apartment buildings, much like the Majestic Hotel in Chicago.
And it's just across the street from my new favorite Boston coffee shop, The Wired Puppy. Great name, good coffee.
I mentioned yesterday that I've had the most difficult time imaginable figuring out what makes people born after 1980 tick. Via reader JM, who teaches junior high school, Beloit College has released their annual Mindset List putting the Class of 2014 in context:
Most students entering college for the first time this fall—the Class of 2014—were born in 1992.
For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.
1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
...
4. Al Gore has always been animated.
...
19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
Sigh.
In other news, Boston beat Toronto 5-4 in the 11th after 9 straight innings of playing like Cubs. Both teams, actually. Fortunately when both teams are playing that way the home team gets to go last and fix it. Or, as a friend of mine says, "The thing about mud-wrasslin' with a pig is you both get dirty, but the pig likes it." (That may not have anything to do with baseball but it's funny.)
Anyway, game photos later today when I'm back home.
Three things encourage me to resume the 30-Park Geas this season. First, I haven't seen a baseball game in almost a year; second, three weeks from now I'll be done with all the CCMBA travel; and third, American Airlines is running a triple-miles promotion this summer from Chicago to New York and Boston.
So: my options are Boston on August 21st or New York on August 28th.
Boston would cost $40 more for the airfare; New York would cost about that much more for a hotel room. (And no, I wouldn't stay in Queens.) So it's a wash. Adding to the dilemma is the question, do I want to see the oldest park in the country, or the newest? And then there's the issue of having many more friends in New York than in Boston.
If this is the hardest decision I have to make this month, I'm doing all right.
I discovered this joke from the head of Duke's CCMBA IT department:
An accountant is having a hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor. "Doctor, I just can't get to sleep at night."
"Have you tried counting sheep?"
"That's the problem - I make a mistake and then spend three hours trying to find it."
And 24 hours from now, I'll be somewhere over Minnesota on my way to Shanghai...