I’ll have an update from our trip to Hilton Head sometime soon.
Until then, I’m pleased to report that Jenelle has updated her wish list. Her birthday is less than a month away. 🙂
Brewers-Cubs, Sunday
The first three innings were exciting, then things dulled down for a while, and then the last inning had some suspense. In the end, the Cubs prevailed by a score of 4 to 2, avoiding the sweep.
On the way in, I snapped a shot of a couple of the Klements Racing Sausages, who were getting swarmed by lots of kids:
Note: The italian sausage won the race. This was the first time this year that I saw someone BESIDES THE HOT DOG winning the race.
In honor of Mother’s Day, several of the players used pink bats and/or wore pink wristbands.
When the Cubs took the lead, Jenelle was pretty excited:
One of the most poignant moments of the game came after a near disaster. An errant line drive zoomed into the crowd. The ball bounced off someone and ended up in another section. While we couldn’t see everything that happened, it appeared that a young boy (probably in the 7-9 years old range) was hit. Thankfully, there were no visible signs of injury. He was sobbing loudly and clutching his father — my guess is that he was more startled and scared than actually hurt. Here’s the amazing part. The ball, which was about a section away, was passed back to the boy, resulting in applause from everyone. He certainly deserved to keep that souvenir.
It was a great weekend, but I think I need some time off from attending live baseball games for a while. 🙂
Brewers-Cubs, Saturday
Chalk up another one for the Brewers. That was a LONG game.
Once again, we arrived at the game with time to spare. We left a bit later than we wanted to, and we were surprised that we didn’t run into much traffic.
Both starting pitchers did pretty well. Ryan Dempster of the Cubs had six strikeouts in the first two innings, and Yovani Gallardo of the Brewers wasn’t far behind. Dempster did give up a few runs early on, but pitched six solid innings.
With the Brewers up 3-0, Cubs first baseman Micah Hoffpauir hit a two-run homer. I caught Jenelle smiling:
It looked like we might have another down-to-the-wire finish, but then the Brewers poured it on in the seventh. Dempster stayed in the game for two too many batters, giving up back-to-back home runs by Craig Counsell and Ryan Braun before taking a seat. A few walks and a few more hits gave the Brewers a total of six runs in the bottom of the seventh, making the score 9-2.
The Cubs worked hard to get back in the game in the eighth, scoring four runs. With two outs and Kosuke Fukudome on second, about 30% of the stadium lights went out. About thirty seconds later, another 30% of the lights went out. It’s hard to tell from the picture below, but it was a little bit darker. We could see just fine, but it wasn’t bright enough to continue play.
The lights eventually came back on, and the Brewers tacked on three more in the bottom of the eighth. The final score was 12-6.
One more thought on the pitching efforts. Dempster had nine strikeouts in six innings. Gallardo had eight strikeouts in five innings. There’s a board in right field that tracks the total number of strikeouts thrown by Brewer pitchers. Brewer pitchers combined for 13 strikeouts. The board only has capacity for fifteen. Here’s what it looked like at the end of the game:
Today, it’s Sean Marshall of the Cubs vs. Jeff Suppan of the Brewers in the series finale. Go Brewers! (Jenelle: Go Cubs!)
Brewers-Cubs, Friday
Yesterday was the first of three Brewers-Cubs games at Miller Park this weekend. In the three-game series over Easter weekend, the Brewers won the opening game, and the Cubs took the other two.
The first game of this series was another thriller. I forgot my actual digital camera, so I used my cell phone camera instead. It takes pretty good pictures:
We got to the game pretty early, and fans were lined up in certain aisles for “Autograph Friday”. The line for Corey Hart (RF) was quite long, and so was the one for Manny Parra (starting pitcher). Mitch Stetter (relief pitcher) had a much shorter line. An attentive father was waiting in line with his son for Manny Parra’s autograph. His son held a souvenir bat. While his son stayed in line, the father borrowed the bat, got in line for Mitch Stetter’s autograph, made it to the front in a minute or two, got the autograph, and was back with his son before reaching the front of Manny Parra’s line. Good work.
The big highlight of pre-game activities, though, was American Idol top three contestant Danny Gokey, who is from Milwaukee. He threw out a ceremonial first pitch and sang the national anthem.
The Cubs scored first in the 5th inning on a solo home run by Milton Bradley. They added another run in the 6th on a sacrifice fly by Alfonso Soriano (following a pinch-hit triple by Bobby Scales). The Cubs fans were in pretty good spirits, even after a solo home run by Brewer shortstop J.J. Hardy in the bottom of the 6th.
That all changed in the bottom of the 8th. After a walk and a wild pitch, Corey Hart was on second base. Ryan Braun stepped up to the plate. I said to Jenelle, “he should bunt. No would expect that.” Instead, he belted one over the right field wall. “Yeah, I guess a home run is better.” There’s a reason I’m not a manager. Here’s the look on Jenelle’s face after the Brewers took a 3-2 lead:
Trevor Hoffman pitched a perfect ninth inning to get the save. The Brewers-Cubs season series is now tied at two games each. Hopefully today and tomorrow’s games will be just as exciting.
May Warm-Up
Things are moving along just fine with Jenelle and me. We’re enjoying the warmer weather. My marathon on Saturday went pretty well — I’ll have details on the Running Blog soon. Photos are already up, including this great shot:
In other news, we’re planning to attend all three Brewers-Cubs games this weekend, so that should be fun. As usual, I’ll wear my Brewers shirt, and Jenelle will wear her Cubs shirt. Nothing like a little rivalry to keep things interesting.
Easter Weekend 2009
As you can see from the picture above, we were blessed to enjoy Easter dinner with both my parents and Jenelle’s parents.
The second thing that made this an extra special weekend is all the baseball games we attended. Jenelle and I went to the Brewers’ first home game of the season on Friday. I went with my friend, Rich, on Saturday. On Sunday, Jenelle, her parents, and I all got to enjoy the game. Here’s a few photos from each day. Enjoy!
Wisconsin Marathon
After nearly six months “off”, I’m running a marathon on Saturday, May 2nd. Details here.
One year later
Whenever a difficult task is before me, I can still hear his voice:
“If you have a job to do, you do it.”
I miss him, but as long as I never forget him, I think everything will be okay.
Happy Anniversnowry
To celebrate six years of nuptial bliss, Jenelle and I ventured north to Door County, for a one-night stay at The Blacksmith Inn on the Shore” in Baileys Harbor. It was a lovely bed & breakfast right on the “main drag” (Highway 57).
With the weather on the cold side and a lot of stores not opened for the peak tourist season, we spent most of our time relaxing in the room. They had free popcorn (which was really good) and a large selection of DVDs. We watched North by Northwest, an old Cary Grant film. I also found an edition of Groundhog Day with special features that my version at home doesn’t have, so we took in the deleted scenes and a couple of other things.
For dinner, we went a bit further north to The Inn at Kristofer’s in Sister Bay. Jenelle had the halibut, and I had chicken roulade. For dessert, we split a chocolate baked alaska with caramel topping. All quite delicious.
On Sunday morning, the actual date of our anniversary, we woke up to see snow covering the landscape, notably the pier leading out to the lake.
We would have liked to spend more time outside, especially on our private balcony, but it was too cold. After a breakfast that featured blueberries, muffins, cereal, juice, and milk, we traveled back to Kenosha. The roads weren’t too bad.
The toughest part was arriving at home and having to clear out several inches of wet, heavy snow. While it wasn’t the most exciting anniversary celebration, it was great to spend lots of quality time with my sweetie.
Getting it right, part 2
When covering a story for Milwaukee’s new Arena Football team (the “Iron”), channel 4 made a horrible error with the on-screen caption:
This next image isn’t exactly a mistake. It was taken at a hallway intersection at a church. If I was a newcomer looking for a restroom or a stairway, I might be a bit confused:
I’ve been there enough to know that there are multiple restrooms and stairways in the building, so you’ll soon find one no matter which way you go.
Coming soon — a post celebrating our sixth anniversary, which was yesterday.
