Happy New Years!

Let's face it: 2009 kinda sucked. Heck, the whole decade was kinda sorry, for that matter. The good news is that we get a new slate starting tomorrow. We also get a second full moon tonight. The extra moon is called a blue moon. Apparently, it has more to do with a mispronunciation of an old English word than the color of it, but, whatever. Anyway, it only happens every two or three years, so, that's got to bode well, right? Hey, I always liked the Marcels:




'Course, for you traditionalists, it's hard to beat Ella Fitzgerald:



Hope your New Year's Eve is good.

A Ministry of Cleaning Out Refrigerators.

Although the primary source of my distinctly non-subtle sense of humor was my wild and crazy dad, my mom (well, mine and AndyMan's mom) could be a pretty funny person, too. A few years after mom joined the Sisters of the Transfiguration, I went up to the Convent in Glendale, Ohio, to visit. She was taking her turn cleaning the kitchen, and opined to me and the remainder of those present that she had a special "ministry of cleaning out refrigerators". When the Apostle Paul talked about the special gifts doled out to the faithful, he may not have specifically mentioned a ministry of cleaning out refrigerators, but I chalk that up to the extensive lag time between his ministry and the invention of the refrigerator.

I've listed The Manor for sale, and it has been pointed out to me that a disgusting refrigerator, in the current economy, is not conducive to a quick real estate sale. My refrigerator qualified as disgusting, so I figured it was time to give it a bath.

So I did.

Hey, that's a good looking refrigerator!

Now I just gotta get some food.

EggMcMathews

When my brother, the Amazing AndyMan, and I were youngish lads growing up in Cigar City, we witnessed the advent of McDonald's Egg McMuffins. We liked them. We seldom got to have them. We developed our own answer: the Egg McMathews. Basically the same ingredients, but, you know, made at home. I'd passed this story along to financee and fab cook, Diane, and she prepared a surprise for the day-after-Christmas: the new and improved Egg McMathews. Toasted English muffins, topped with lean Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and (instead of mega-fattening Hollandaise sauce) a lite cheese sauce that was way-good. I had to tease her about her ultra-healthy choice of eggs, though. They were advertised as the eggs of "organic, vegetable fed" chickens. I didn't realize that meat-eating chickens were abundant.




Of course, nobody wants the horrid specter of zombie chickens eggs!. Hmmm. Maybe Diane does have the right idea afterall.

Merry Christmas, Baby.

Merry Christmas to everyone. Diane and I'll be at Midnight Mass in a bit. I hope that you find peace and contentment in your own way, and a little momentum going into the new year. Maybe Bruce can help:

Russ Turns Fifty.

As I've reported plenty in the past, the Baggetts were my "second family" as I was growing up in Tampa. I've known Russ since fifth grade. We went to Morgan Woods Elementary, Webb Junior High School, and Leto High School together, and later were housemates at Florida State University. I was shocked to discover that he decided to turn fifty last week. His sister, Sarah, set up a surprise party for him at his aunt's place near his house in Panama City, Florida. Fiancee Diane was all set for a road trip, and off we went.

Hmmm. Tire pressure's a little low. Better get Diane to put some air in 'em.

We stayed in Marinna, FL, about an hour North of Panama City, smack in the middle of Florida's "pan handle". Marianna is not big. Neither was its newspaper, The Jackson County Floridian, though its price was up there with the big boys. The lead story was that the turnout for the Christmas parade was low. The local population musta been applying for one of the four jobs listed as "now available" just above the headline.

The party was fun. Alligator hunter Phil came up from Tampa with fellow Leto H.S. Falcon Terrie; Pee Wee league Viking teammate Tommy Ostertag came over from Tallahassee, and lots of Russ' family were in attendance. Sister Sarah, Diane, and Russ and Sarah's mom (and my "second mom") Frandy, pictured at left, visited. Frandy and Diane hit it off, as I'd hoped they would. The barbecue and cake were mighty tasty, and it seemed like folks had fun.

The next day we checked out of the Fairfield and headed East on I-10.

I won't tell you where I saw this sign, but my first thought on seeing it was, "Uh, not since diapers".


We stopped in Jacksonville to visit with friends from the Boro, Jim and Gale.

Fat, Dumb, and Happy.

Looky here! South Carolina is among the Happiest States in the Country. The article in today's Charleston "Post and Courier" has us at number six, the Yahoo News article has us at number eight. Either way, we're in the top ten.

We're also in the top ten Fattest States, and Dumbest States (as measured by S.A.T. test results). Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that. Guess I'll have a cheeseburger and not think about it.

Time Magazine's Palmetto State Person of the Year

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has been named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year". I'm personally a bigger fan of his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, but I do dig that Bernanke is from Dillon, South Carolina, and that he used to be a waiter at a restaurant at super-kitschy South of the Border. Go, Pedro!

Kiawah Marathon

I signed up for the Kiawah Island Marathon a few months ago. The event was yesterday. I've not trained as much as I should have, and might not have gone, except: I said I would, and; Star would've given me a bunch of grief if I didn't, and; it cost a hundred clams. Anyway, I went, and, as the photo of the finisher's medallion at left depicts, I completed it. How long did it take? I'm not really sure. It was less than six hours. I thought it was about 5:40, but the times messed up. I know I finished just behind Elizabeth Ireland from NJ. She finished at 5:37:38, but there are no times listed for almost an hour from her official time to the next, as you can see from the results our 20 mile times were not official. Obviously, either 100 or so of us can't read signs, or the timer at the turn screwed up. Anyway, I finished. It wasn't easy. A local bank sign had the temperature at 39 degrees as running partner Kevin and I drove to the race, and the forecast was for an 80% chance of rain. I was one of about a thousand souls that finished the full marathon, and just short of 3,700 finished the half (though one dude died in the process).

At the start of the race, it was COLD. I'd bought a two-dollar pair of gloves prior to the race, solely for the purpose of not feeling bad when I would ditch them a couple of miles into the race. It never got much warmer than the mid-forties during the race, but I generated plenty heat and did, indeed, toss them (which reminds me of one of my favorite race-snob comment during the event. One gal, desperate for anyone within earshot to know her marathon pedigree commented, loudly, "Yeah, I tossed one of my favorite pairs of gloves at BOSTON a couple of years ago". Being allowed to run in the Boston Marathon is, for those not familiar with the marathon life, generally regarded as entrance into an elite fraternity of running. My brother, the Amazing AndyMan, has run Boston two or three times, I think. I will never qualify to run Boston. I didn't recognize her as one of the people on the winner's podium... but then, I was late). God apparently had mercy upon us, as the rain didn't start coming down until after most folks had finished.

Ultra-everything, Star, and the missing-in-action ultra-runners Chase and AndyMan, scoff at mere marathons, but let me tell you: 26.2 miles is a really long way to run. My longest run since I completed the Jacksonville, FL, Marathon seven years ago has been 20 miles, which I have done just twice in the last six months. My normal pace is a pedestrian mile every twelve minutes. I learned at the race that 12 minutes is regarded as a walker pace. There were signs for runner placement at the start of the race of, from the front of the starting line to the rear: six, seven, eight, and nine minutes, and "walkers". I grumbled loudly, "Geez, we ten-minute milers have got to be here with the walkers?". Even after six months or so of training, I still weigh about 215 pounds, which made me considerably larger than most of the people out there. I wasn't fooling anybody. One diminutive runner eyed me suspiciously after my comment. "Okay, I'm busted. But ten minute miles is a walker?"

From the official start of the race, it took about five minutes for the "walkers" to reach the actual starting line. I ambled along. My left hip, which had been bothering me for weeks, didn't hurt at all, but my feet hurt and my legs cramped quite a bit. At the half-marathon finish/full marathon loop, I truly wanted to turn left to finish, rather than right to do it all over again, but I persevered. I ran with whoever was close, which was fewer and fewer people as the race worn on. My partner and I traded leads for awhile, but he dropped me like I was hot at mile seventeen or so. I ran with one dude from Vero Beach, FL, for most of the last few miles. I heard a funny "buzz" as I crossed the 20 mile mat. I'm not sure if I missed a turn, or if the sensor at the turn was messed up, but I was always running with somebody or another, and there is a gap of about an hour in the final race tally. Kevin had an official finish, so, if I could've stuck with him, I would have too. Ah, well, my sense of direction has never been my strong suit.

Running partner Kevin and I arrived at the Kiawah Resort on Friday afternoon to register, check the place out, and pick up our shirts and numbers. Although Kiawah is very close to the Boro, I'd never been. It's nice. Kind of like Hilton Head, but more a rich suburb to Charleston than Hilton Head (which is like a rich suburb of Savannah, GA). The pass-gate insured that the only riff-raff in the place would be at least wearing an identifying number.


The World Cup of Golf was played on Kiawah in 2003.


Kevin managed to find registration.


With proper planning, I might be able to stay out of here...


...and here.


I was really tempted to rent on of these.

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UPDATE: The folks at Kiawah evidently corrected the times, and I'm now official (slow, at 5:37:36 or so, but official).

Get Your Pink On.

Very cool breast cancer awareness video put together by a hospital in Portland, Oregon. Thanks, Diane, for sending me this.

The Citadel versus Michigan State.

My lovely fiance, Diane, grew up in Michigan, and is a big Michigan State Spartans fan. See? Here's a shot from Spartan Stadium in East Lansing in October. Anyway, as many football fans do at this time of year, she was lamenting what might have been on the gridiron, and expressing hope for the early basketball season. I'd mentioned that the Big 10 teams (all eleven of them) have a Big 10/ACC challenge, and that maybe MSU would play Clemson or something and we could go see them play. She was at the computer, and -lo and behold- Coach Tom Izzo, Sparty, and the rest of 11th ranked crew would be visiting Charleston to play the Citadel at the McAlister Fieldhouse. She scored tickets, and we were on our way.


The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute (VMI) are the only state-supported military colleges in the country, and The Citadel has always intrigued me. Though I've lived fairly close to Charleston these last 22 years or so, I'd never been to the Citadel. Though there are plenty of Citadel grads in the area, including my running partner, Kevin, most of what I know about the Citadel I learned from Pat Conroy's books. Conroy has not always portrayed his Alma Mater in a flattering light, and his relationship with the Citadel has, in the past, been strained. They've largely patched things up, apparently, and he was at a book signing for his new book, South of Broad, upstairs.

It was interesting to see a cadet in a guardbox wave us in to campus, and respond with "Maam" when Diane asked him a question; to watch students in gray uniforms march ram-rod straight in little narrow paths out of late classes; to see Freshman "knobs" with their shaved heads; to watch the student section singing "Hey, Baby" in unison, just like the fraternity stuff I remembered many, many years ago.

Citadel coach Ed Conroy (cousin of the aforementioned author), had the Bulldogs ready for the game. Though eventually MSU pulled away to win by 13 or so, the contest was a lot better than the Spartans expected. Powered by a meteor-shower of three-point shots, The Citadel battled MSU toe-to-toe for most of the game. I'm marrying in to Spartan fandom, but I may yet be a Bulldog fan, too.

A Puzzle, Wrapped in an Enigma.

Got court this week, but I didn't want you to be bored. Here's a jigsaw puzzle to work on until I get back.

Go To Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

I spend a lot of time at the Colleton County Detention Center. Many of my clients are unable to post their bail bonds, so they sit in jail until their case is called to trial. It probably wouldn't even help if they were allow out if they rolled doubles. Their luck is not too good, you see. I've got another week of criminal court next week. Some of those in jail now will be out next week; some of those that aren't in jail now, will be next week. And the beat goes on.



and on...

The Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

Uh, oh! Smoke coming out the building next door. Somebody better call somebody!


There they are: Colleton County Fire Department.


Oh, I see: It's a training thing.


Okay, so he looks like he's had better days; he's a little crisp, but still in one piece.