Marty October 4th, 2007
I don’t care what anyone says, Charlie Manuel is a moron. I know the Kendrick was getting into trouble, but he was in less than 3 innings, and we KNOW that we need the starters to go deep. And Kyle Lohse? That worked out really well… giving up a grand slam to a guy with 4 home runs for the season. And Jose Mesa?!?!? Brilliant. Son-of-a-b!tch this sucks.
Marty October 4th, 2007
Cole Hamels pitched a good game yesterday … well, except for that one inning. Take that away and they had a chance. Of course, having the entire top of the order going 0-for-alot didn’t help, either. Come on Phils - we’re still hoping you’ll bring us a World Series!!!
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Now playing: Rachael Yamagata - Worn Me Down
Marty September 5th, 2007
After seeing the box score of today’s game, I’m done. I’m convinced that the Phillies have no shot of going to the playoffs this year, and the reason is simple. It’s also the same reason it’s been for the last two years: relief pitching.
Below is a chart of the Phillies relievers for their last 5 and 10 appearances. Notice anything? How about only 3 of the 7 having respectable ERAs in their last 5, and NO ONE being under 5.68 over their last ten. How can any team expect to win with numbers like that?
Hell, the team has a combined 9.76 / 9.19 ERA for those same periods (okay, it’s hard to count since they weren’t the same games, but still…). That’s just ridiculous. It’s like saying, “Gee, we have to survive 3 more innings using a reliever - are we up by more than 3 runs, just in case?”
Well, the Flyers start in a month, right?
| Pitcher | ER5 | IP5 | ERA5 | ER10 | IP10 | ERA10 |
| Myers | 5 | 6.1 | 7.38 | 7 | 11.1 | 5.68 |
| Gordon | 5 | 4.1 | 10.98 | 11 | 7.2 | 13.75 |
| Alfonseca | 7 | 2.1 | 30.00 | 9 | 2.7 | 30.00 |
| Mesa | 11 | 3.3 | 30.00 | 13 | 7.4 | 15.81 |
| Rosario | 7 | 4.4 | 14.32 | 8 | 11.4 | 6.32 |
| Romero | 1 | 2.4 | 3.75 | 3 | 3.8 | 7.11 |
| Castro | 2 | 7.2 | 2.50 | 6 | 9.2 | 5.87 |
| Geary | 2 | 7.3 | 2.47 | 10 | 12.8 | 7.03 |
| TOTALS | 40 | 36.9 | 9.76 | 67 | 65.6 | 9.19 |
I posted this using the new-ish Adobe Contribute. I made the table in Excel (TONS quicker than HTML), and then simply did an ‘export to blog’. It worked pretty well once I configured it. I might have to consider it for other things in the near future…
Marty August 28th, 2007
Well, we’re back from our vacation in Topsail Island, NC. Every year, my family gets together in August at my parents beachhouse there, and we hang out on the beach, body surf, drink margaritas, play games/cards, etc. Every year, it’s been a different cast of characters, but it’s always been fun. This year was a little more mellow than some of the past ones, but I still had a good time - I just wish it was longer.
Marty July 18th, 2007
This past weekend was my wife and my five-year anniversary (yep, hard to believe that we got married 5 years ago). On July 13, 2002, I stood on the beach at Namale Resort outside of Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji. As I stood, barefoot, on the beach waiting, the sun was making a break through the frequent clouds that had covered the sky until only 15 minutes before. Then, my wife came walking down the vine-covered steps, resplendent in colorful flowers and her beautiful dress. We wed at sunset, barefoot, to a chorus of native Fijians.
Originally, we had planned to go back for our fifth anniversary - but funds weren’t available at this time; instead, we decided to spend a long weekend down in Cape May, NJ for some birding, beach time and relaxation. It had already been a long two weeks of work, so I was very ready to get out of town and start doing some relaxing by Thursday night when we left.
Shari had made reservations at the Angel of the Sea bed and breakfast, which was supposed to be one of the best B&B’s in NJ, and one of the best in the country (at least by people who are the experts). I didn’t know the place from anywhere else in the area, since I had only been there twice before, while Shari grew up in that area and seemed to know everywhere and everything. I trusted her judgement, though, so I packed up and went along for the ride.
We got there fairly late at night, and wanted to get out and do some walking on the beach. It was a little chilly, but I had a really good time as we walked down to the ‘boardwalk’ (a 3-block set of concrete along the main ocean boulevard, then through the nearby neighborhoods to the ‘mall’, where we picked up some books for Shari and some ice cream. It was a good night to start our trip as we admired the architecture and she told me about her time down here when she was younger. It was great to hear her reminisce about her younger days.
The next morning, we got up early and began our daily excursions out for birds, butterflies and - for me, at least - dragonflies. Over the next three days, we’d go to Higbee Beach, Cape May Meadows, Cape May Point and the Cape May beaches themselves. It was a great time as we ran around seeing great things like Common Wood Nymphs, Piping Plover and Least Tern chicks, Black Skimmers skimming the waters, and a huge group of darners (big dragonflies) swarming in one particular nook of the forest at Higbee Beach.
While we were there, we tried to eat healthy but we were also treating ourselves. We had to do a quick snack on Thursday night on our way in (which included some peanut butter and chocolate frozen yogurt). We had planned our big romantic dinner for our actual anniversary night - Friday the 13th - but Shari wasn’t feeling well so we put it off until the next night. No sense wasting a big dinner, right? But the place we went - Bella Vida Cafe was fantastic, too. Our waitress was bubbly and friendly, and even if she didn’t know what ‘fresh mozzarella’ really means, it was still fun to have her serve us. The food was delicious - tilapia for me, and a seafood pasta dish for Shari - and we enjoyed some romantic time talking and relaxing. Saturday night, we did our belated anniversary dinner at The Mad Batter. Shari had been there for their famous brunch, but wasn’t sure about their dinners - but the reviews were promising so we set it up. It was worth it. Her dinner was better than mine, but overall it was still very good. Again we had a great dinner and enjoyed looking around at the scenery, people-watching and relaxing.
Unfortunately, whatever bug she had came back later in the evening, cutting short the planned festivities which were to have included - in no particular order - miniature golf, skee ball, getting fudge and/or soft ice cream at one of the 1,000 places available and a walk on the beach. Instead, we retired early. It was a shame, because she was a trooper for the whole weekend despite not feeling well at all. She was sick, and worse, she was frustrated because as she put it, “this wasn’t the big, romantic weekend she had planned.” I felt really bad for her - so things didn’t go as planned, but I know that I had a great time anyway, and I think that she did, too, for the most part. I can’t say that I didn’t wish that she felt better, because that’s obvious, but I still enjoyed the chance to relax and spend some quality time with my wife without worrying about housework, my job, the dogs or pretty much anything or anyone else.
It had been a particularly tough two weeks lately, and I was bushed. We haven’t had a whole lot of quality time together, either. So, i took it for what it was - an opportunity to sit back and enjoy a little beach time, some togetherness and some time to just be with my wife, celebrating our first 5 years together (and the fact that she hadn’t killed me yet). In that respect, it was a GREAT weekend.
On Sunday, we packed it up and decided to hit a few more places on the way home. We stopped at Cape May Meadows and Cape May Point, stopped by Stone Harbor (where we had a fantastic lunch at Polly’s that more than made up for the fact that Stone Harbor had none of the birds we had expected to see) and then went up to our old stand-by Forsythe NWR. We had hoped to see the Roseate Spoonbill which has made an appearance there, but we were out of luck on that one. We did, however, get to see a lot of really cool stuff including a pair of Clapper Rails with 9 chicks, black skimmers running along the waterways and an aberrant Glossy Ibis (it had a white cap that doesn’t normally exist in the species). It was a little windy, but we still had a good time. By the time we got home, however, we were both exhausted - not that we would have had any time to unpack because the menagerie was there to great us with licks, tail wags, meows and offered toys of greeting.
So, things weren’t perfect this weekend - they were still great in my mind. Shari wants a do-over, and I’m never going to argue that one. For me, however, our fifth anniversary did what I wanted it to - reminded me why I married her in the first place, and why I’m looking forward to the next 5 years - and more.
Marty April 24th, 2007
I know that most people (that being the 8 people who read this with any regularity) are probably tired of reading about our Texas trip, but I wanted to tidy it up with a final memoir of our trip - which is ironically the first entry I started when I was on the plane coming home.
This trip represented a lot of things for Shari and me - our first solo vacation (i.e. no quarreling relatives) since the start of Iraq War 2: Electric Bugaboo, a chance to do some birding and see a lot of new things, a trip that I’ve been wanting to take for a while and a much needed vacation getting outdoors and enjoying each other’s company. We succeeded on all counts.
I got to enjoy some serious one-on-one time with my wife, remembering all of the reasons I love her (not that I forgot). I know that I can be tough to live with at times, particularly when the ADD is running rampant, but she’s be a saint. And while it’s been tough to watch her go through being sick for almost 2 years, she’s finally feeling better and getting back to her old self. There have been some tough times in the interim, but I’m happy to say that we were determined to make it through them - and we did. Having a set of shared passions (photography and birding, among them) was an obvious boon, but I also think it was in part due to sheer force of will and our deep love for each other.
On this trip, we got to enjoy all of those things that made us happy with each other; additionally, it taught me a few lessions that I hadn’t expected. So, without further ado:
Marty April 20th, 2007
On our last day in Texas, we were a little bummed - the trip had been just too short. But we had planned it that way - I was still new at my job, so taking a lot of vacation wasn’t a great idea, and we wanted to skimp and save on costs where we could. In retrospect, both seemed short-sighted, LOL. Continue Reading »
Marty April 16th, 2007
By day 4 of our trip (our last full day), we had already had a gerat time despite some tough conditions. Now we had to figrue out what we wanted to do for our last full day - our last chance to wander far and wide in the area. We considered tryign Santa Ana NWR again or going to Bentsen-Rio Grand National Park. Instead, we followed the recommendations of many of the kind people on the TEXBIRDS mailing list and tried out a relatively new state park just south of Weslaco, TX - Estero Llano Grande State Park. Continue Reading »
Marty April 4th, 2007
By day 3 of our trip, we were getting into the swing of things - get up in the morning, grab some breakfast and then head out to whatever destination we had picked the night before. For day 3, we were reviewing recommendations from a variety of people, and decided to follow one that my friend Joe had told us to not miss - Sabal Palm Audubon Center, south of Brownsville. The weather was a bit cloudy and more than a little windy, but we figured we would give it a go anyway. The weather didn’t cooperate fully, but we still had a really cool time.
Getting there was a little more difficult than our previous excursions - our guide (Birder’s Guide to Texas) was published before Sabal Palm had established itself fully, and was little more than a mention in the book. The instructions I gotten online gave us directions to follow, but those directions - while functionally correct - relied somewhat on familiarity with the area (such as Rt. 4, 48 and Boca Chica Boulevard are the same road for a short while - not parallel or crossroads as we had expected). But after a few turns, we found our way to the park, catching some cool birds on the way in.
The park is smaller than Santa Ana or Laguna Atascosa, and has a much more local feel to it. The visitor center is a small building with a shop, counter and office all together, plus a small picnic area and feeder station next to it. We paid our entrance fee (unlike the previous two days, which were covered with our National Parks pass, we had to pay to get in). Because of our previous day’s exploits
with the butterflies, my wife surprised me with a copy of the “Butterflies through Binoculars - the West” to help us ID some of those species that weren’t in our eastern guide - a nice start to the day.
The park is smaller, with only a few trails that run through and around the perimeter of the park. The main path leads through some woods and grasslands, which were filled with a number of small, brown butterflies (which I still haven’t identified), and a number of smaller birds that flittered away before we could get a bead on them. Coming up to the lake boardwalk, we heard some interesting songs that turned out to be a Long-billed Thrasher, singing his heart out. From there, the boardwalk took us along a resaca where we started seeing a lot of cool dragonflies, including a Common Green Darter, a Great Blue Skimmer and our first Red Saddlebags, who I think actually followed us to get his photo taken. Further up the way, we came across a Great Kiskadee who was also being very photogenic, and then one of the highlights of the day - a pair of Least Grebes.
We watched the grebes - a species that only consistently seen in south Texas - diving and moving around a small pond at the edge of the boardwalk, fishing and hiding from our cameras as much as possible. They started pulling up some weeds from the bottom, and we realized that they were building a nest only about 3m off of the boardwalk. We watched them for a while, taking in their interaction and nest-building before moving on to see what else we could see.
Another trail took us down a brushy path that was full of all sorts of cool insects - if not birds - including my first Great Meadowhawk and a number of butterflies and skippers. I hadn’t thought that there would be as many butterflies out at this time of year, but we were following them (ridiculously) all over the place, trying in vain to get good shots of species that we knew would
be new ones - if we could get a good look or picture of them. Eventually, we came across a really nicely-built blind that extended into the resaca. It was huge - think of a grand gazebo for a dozen people, and then wall it in so that you can look out safely hidden from the view of the animals you want to watch.
Almost immediately, we were hooked. Swimming only a few feet from the nearest viewport was a Pied-billed Grebe feeding and giving us awesome looks at him/her (the best I’ve gotten, actually). Shari and I both shot at least 100 shots of him/her each before we really started looking around. The pond was filled with a number of great waterfowl species, and a fairly cool watersnake of some sort - although the birds were most of the excitement. We saw gadwall, best-ever looks at American coots, our first mottled ducks, ruddy ducks, least and pied-billed grebes. We hung out there for a while, giddy as we took picture after picture.
After a time, we decided to take off back to Laguna Arascosa, but decided to take one more look along the boardwalk to see if we could catch anything fun and interesting. Our surprise, however, was when we got back to the least grebes. In the intervening 45 minutes or so since we walked away, they had actually laid an egg. We watched as they continued prepping the nest around it, and were amazed at how close we’d been to seeing the event. We missed it, but it was still pretty cool to see.
Marty April 4th, 2007
After our trip to Santa Ana earlier, my wife convinced me to go back to Laguna Atascosa to see if we could see some new stuff or get better looks at what we’d seen the day before - including trying to see that darned “Blue” Green Jay. Continue Reading »
