Back to school

First grade is officially underway. Here's O on day one sans back-pack but w/ some wicked argyles. (Of note: 96% humidity or not, no shorts to school we found out, surely for the same reason orange shirts are banned.)

So far, there hasn't been a flood of reports coming back but we do know that O lost the baby tooth that was in front of the adult tooth coming in on the bottom. And when I say lost, I mean, it came out at school and he couldn't find it. We believe that it did not end up in his GI tract. Since the tooth fairy's visit was much anticipated, Mom came up with the brilliant plan to have O draw a picture of the tooth and put it under his pillow. This picture, which featured a tooth shaped much like Connecticut colored gray with an eye as backdrop ("I'm looking at it"), was inscribed with the following: "Dear Tooth Fairy: please bring me a present even though I left my tooth in the cafeteria. Love, Owen." And in case anyone questions whether O intended to color it gray, he labeled it 'kitten gray.'

Old-fashioned beat down

The Colts had their fancy new retractable roof and 7 billion megapixel jumbotron going for them but not their A game; the Bears took 'em apart on both ends of the ball. Prince Peyton made all kinds of faces: angry, petulant, frustrated, but not so many throws.

I'm trying not to get carried away but it's safe to say the Bears' performance makes a playoff run more realistic. Esp if the Lions' run defense is really that bad.

Pennant race...

I have shamelessly adopted the Phillies as my pennant race team. They're in NYC tonight for a crucial 3-game series against the Mets. It's 1-0 Phills, top of the fourth. Brett Myers, on the hill tonight, has been the Phils MVP down the stretch. If that's not enough excitement: espn.com mlb gamecast is now sponsored by Grape Nuts, thereby combining my loves of real-time game updates and high fiber cereal.

Football season begins in earnest this weekend. I have no idea what to make of Da Bears but my gut tells me: mostly staunch defense, electric Devin Hester, Orton/Forte better than predicted, shaky division -- 9-7 with a shot at the wildcard.

Disaster preparedness...

I got this message in my email inbox this a.m. ('All users' is everyone in the medical center):

"All users there is a very strong smell of gas coming from the refinery. Please call the Safety office for any other issues or emergencies"

Palin unleashed

Yikes -- I change my mind, I think McCain hired Palin on to do his dirty work. It started out all all shucks but then all heck broke loose. She did all but call Obama a communist. I had a feeling she was going to take out an effigy doll and start sticking pins in it. The gauntlet has been thrown; well played to her/them for using the second convention to its fullest potential for vitriol.

As per the policy plans -- we got some on drilling, which was sort of specific but everything else had a lot of 'reduce big government', 'root out corruption/waste' and 'John McCain has done a lot of amazing things for you' glittering generality feel to it. I know the top of the ticket is supposed to give us more specifics and I'm sure he will, but I would've like to have heard more from her, see previous posts.

Those kids are truly amazing and I'm not being sarcastic. The young daughter licking her hand and smoothing the baby's hair probably netted the ticket more points in a general election than the previous speakers combined. Maybe Track was just scared about being on national tv but with his baby face and that look of utter terror on it as his mom talked about shipping him off to war, my heart actually sank.

Lieberman unleashed

wow ... that was something else. Was that the longest passive aggressive semi-rant in history or a guy speaking from the heart? (And is there a speaker from either party whose bottom teeth are more visible that Joe Lieberman's?) I can't help but think something terrible must've gone down behind the scenes with party leaders when Liebs lost the CT democratic senatorial primary in '06 to Ned what's his face. And...applause for Bill....?!?! The whole thing went bizarro-world for a moment. In the end, Joe's message didn't go very far: we need a leader who can cooperate, build consensus, etc. Sure, great, but you're still left with having to decide which side of the issues you want that consensus to be built around.

And props to Fred Thompson...if he had put as much effort into his campaign as he did that speech, his appearance at the convention may have been a little later in the week.

Sports update

There were no soccer camp pics b/c camp ended in kind of a bust...It was probably a combination of the heat, some kid that was picking on O and the fact that he doesn't like soccer all that much but O left early the last day.  The good news is he's still OK about doing fall soccer league and we went out today and had a semi-successful practice.  Tricky this whole business -- I don't want to force him but he does say of his own free will that he wants to be in the league so I figure he'll like it more if he has some skills.  True, forcing him to do push ups til he pukes is a bit extreme considering the game is mostly lower body but it's more of a core work-out really.

The O's are in free-fall mode.  They've been in last place for a few weeks now so it's not so bad.  The bottom line is, they're on pace to equal the 70 win prediction I made early on.  Vegas was saying 62.  They still showed more fight this year than most were expecting; the two big offseason trades paid off handsomely and Matt Wieters, last year's number 1 pick, is looking like the second coming of Johnny Bench.  Check out the numbers from A and AA ball this season.