What, do you all work all day long? No time to post on the BLD blog? I am just declaring a coup right now. This blog is now my personal diary, although I may grant the rest of you limited privileges to publish posts if you make a formal request.

For those of you who are interested, I have made my reservations for the New Years trip to Philadelphia. I will be arriving early in the afternoon on Friday, December 31st and departing late morning on Sunday, January 2nd.

Hopefully you are all coming. I have only missed one of these soirees, and Rob will forever be able to mock me for it. No, I don't have children to raise, but taking care of myself is probably more difficult than raising a precocious BLD child anyway. So be there.

OUT

Go Cardinals! It used to be go Red Sox when they were playing the Yankees, because the only team I dislike more than the Red Sox is the Yankees. (Such feeling of animosity are well-justified, I believe, especially considering that the Indians' payroll is around $40 million compared to a Red Sox payroll of $127 million and a Yankees payroll of a ridiculous $184 million.) Regardless, it appears that my powers as a fan are now spiraling out of control. I am unable to stop the Red Sox juggernaut that I created after the first three miserable games against the Yanks. Where were such formidable powers when the Indians were in the World Series in 1997? Why was I unable to overcome the dastardly Jose Mesa? These questions will plague me to the grave.

In an unrelated topic, I had the pleasure of visiting Conor Dugan '00 in Silver Spring MD this past Saturday afternoon. We grabbed brunch, I got to know his wife Laurel, and also got to meet his 2-month old Gianna. I then headed to Richmond to visit the Walshes. They prepared a wonderful meal that evening, but all that goodness was almost undone when we decided to play the board game, Battle of the Sexes. It is, quite possibly, the worst game ever. It did not help that Kevin and I were soundly defeated, either.

That is all.

Go Red Sox!

We even let Caleb stay up to watch. He clapped and danced with the best of them after the game. Then he got grumpy and we sent him to bed.

Happy Birthday to Dan Mazzucco today.

Given the frequency of my posts on this site relative to everyone else's, I get the feeling that these happy birthday messages are not an effective way to spread birthday cheer.

In Dan's case, that probably doesn't matter, since he is such a cheery guy to begin with. But it could have an effect on other people.

Hey Dan, is Aidan bigger than you yet? He was almost bigger than me when I saw you in February at Rob's wedding.