Live Out Loud

My sister, Beckie, and her husband are riding in the Pan Mass Challenge in August and sent this email. They're riding to raise money to fight cancer and in memory of our cousin Liz, whom I've blogged about.

Please check it out ...

Cancer . . . It has touched everyone somehow in some way. Some of you have it. Some of you have had it. Some of you will get it. We want it to be cured right now. So we’re doing something about it.

On August 2nd we are riding the Pan Mass Challenge. It is a bicycle ride, 111 - miles from Sturbridge, MA to Bourne, MA. No motor, no throttle, just us. I am not an accomplished cyclist. John is. In fact, I ride a Rock Hopper mountain bike from the 80’s. I’m barely out of training wheels! But I am motivated . . . I want cancer gone.

Go to www.pmc.org to get the low down on the Pan Mass. It is an incredibly impressive, incredibly lucrative charity. They give 100% of funds raised to cancer research. That is one of our motivations.

The other is Liz Schermerhorn. She was my cousin and our friend. She was stricken ill with Leukemia in 2005 and died 18 months later in 2006. Our family has lost an important fiber in what makes up the fabric of our family. We do go on every day hoping the rough edges will soften, but we will never replace the woman we called mother, wife, daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin, friend . . . you get the picture right?

We are riding to honor her memory and to raise money so that no one else has to endure this pain. Together we need to raise $6K. We are extremely aware that things are tight with the price of gasoline and heating oil. We are asking that you help us reach our goal by making a donation however small. We have until August 2nd to make a difference.

Life is short . . . 111 miles will be nothing compared to what some of us will have to endure in our lifetime. Thank you for your help and support.

To make a donation please go to: www.pmc.org and click on "E gifts" in the top, left-hand corner.

- Beckie and John Beaupré

I heart Jerry Remy

Jerry Remy is a former second baseman for the Boston Red Sox has been a Sox broadcaster for the past 20 years.

This is, without a doubt, one of the funniest things that's ever happened to him on live TV ...

Hitting the links

Golf has always been one of those sports that I've had a casual interest in. I'll watch it on TV very rarely, usually just to see Tiger Woods (who doesn't, right?) and I'll play golf on the Xbox 360 but other than that, not so much any real interest but it's something I've always wanted to try.

Well, I actually played golf for the first time last Friday and ... wow. If I had the money, I would've gone and bought a set of clubs as soon as I walked off of the 18th green.

What a blast.

Of course, it helped that I went with three of the coolest people I know: Keith and Kelly Mclinden ("Her Majesty" or "Her Highness" as she liked to be called) and Johnny B ... my wife, Kelley, works with Keith and JB at the high school and Kell "Her Royal Highness" Mclinden rocks the party that rocks the house. She's very self-effacing when it comes to her game but don't let her fool you ... she knows what she's doing ... just ask Spongie.

Anyway, we played 18 holes at a public course in Westminster, MA, called The Woods of Westminster, a nice course that challenges a newbie like me but not so much that it makes one want to quit.

I was using a set of clubs I borrowed from my brother-in-law, Paul, and it turns out the clubs were my father-in-law's, so that was kind of cool.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day out ... sunny but with intermittent clouds so the sun wasn't beating down on you the whole day ... low 80s, no humidity ... perfect.

As for my game ... well, not so perfect, but then again I didn't go into this with any expectations at all given that aside from an occasional trip to a driving range or mini-golf, I've never played before.

For the day it was a steady diet of double and triple bogeys at minimum. Every once in a while I bogeyed a hole ... but for the most part, it was living in Hacksville and I was the mayor. But, regardless of how many strokes it took to get to the cup, you just had to drain it because, as Keith observed, "You just have to hear that sound."

One of my biggest problems was hitting the top of the ball when I would tee off ... man, that was annoying. But, when everything came together, I'm pleased to say I could really drive the ball ... and drive it straight. Unfortunately, when everything would come together, it was usually when I was within 100 yards of the pin and I would way overdrive the hole. Still, it was nice to see that I was capable of hitting the ball well.

Once on the green, tho, for the life of me I could not putt the ball without it veering off to the right. What my drive lacked in a slice was more than made up for in my putting game.

After a few holes I realized how much you have to know to be any good at this game. Like Kell said, "It's ridiculous how much you have to remember at the same time" and she's right.

Still, I can see really getting into this ... now, I just need to get to a Pro Shop and get a set of my own clubs ... hey, it's only money, right?

Oh and not for nothing but ... but bought a dozen golf balls for the day and came home with two ... I dunno why, but I'm very proud of that.

This is what can happen when you ride with a drunk driver

I've kept in touch with a friend of mine, Randy, since he left the company a couple of years ago. He moved his family to take a new job in Mississippi where he lives with his wife, Deirdre, and their 20-something daughter and 18-year-old son, Daniel. Great, great people and a lot of fun to be around. I really miss working with this guy because you could be having the worst day at work and you'd always have a smile on your face after he left your office.

Anyway, he sent this email the other day. It's a real wake-up call for anyone who even thinks twice about getting in a car with a drunk driver.

Daniel was in a really bad car accident on Monday night. He was a passenger in a car that was being driven by a drunk teenager. (Dumb I know. But Daniel did say the only thing he remembers about the accident was saying, "Stop and let me out" before it happened.). It was the classic drunk teenager accident - speeding - missed a curve in the road, hit trees, flipped over. I don't know how but the right side of the car was largely ripped off, (even the floor was missing on the passenger side). Daniel was in the front passenger seat. The driver got away with only a broken arm. The other boy was in the back, and has some major internal injuries. The EMT said it was hard to tell who had been sitting where because everyone was so thrown around inside.

So we got the dreaded 11:00 at night call from a complete stranger who said, "Did you know that Daniel is in the emergency room and was in a car wreck?" It seems that now news travels faster via the teen cell phone network than it does via official network. As we were rushing out of the house - the phone rang, and it was the hospital confirming what was going on. We show up at the emergency room, and the lobby is full of teenagers, and more arriving all the time. They all wanted to know how everyone was. That was a big surprise to me. They even had a big prayer session in the lobby later that night.

From the local hospital they wanted to medivac Daniel and one of the other boys to the trauma hospital in Memphis, (Memphis has a great trauma center), but there were big thunder storms moving through so they took him by ambulance. They say he will be there for 2 weeks. He is still in ICU, and probably will be for a while. Both the sheriff and the EMT said that they are surprised that anyone survived the wreck.

Fortunately, most all of Daniel's injuries are broken bones. The worst case scenario of brain or spine damage did not happen.

Daniel had surgery Tuesday to put his foot and leg back together. It was a mess I guess. His lower right leg was completely mangled, his leg bones were poking out badly and filled with dirt and grass. The doctors were, and still are afraid of major infection. They cleaned it out, and put it back together with pins and rods and stuff, but are very, very concerned about infection. There are large amounts of skin and tissue missing there, so blood can't circulate, and they will have to piece together pieces of muscle and skin and stuff and major grafts to try and get it all covered up. They are not very encouraging, and say he will most likely have problems with the wounds the rest of his life - because that part of the leg has a hard time healing. He's scheduled to have surgery again today just to do more cleaning and to assess what the next step will be. They have mentioned several times that the ultimate bad result could be the loss of his right foot - which was his mom's immediate worry. That freaks us out as you can imagine.

His pelvis is broken, as is the very very bottom of his spine, (in the upper tail bone area). Apparently there are some important nerves there that control things like bladder and such. Yesterday they did some tests to look for permanent nerve damage, and the initial (but not real dependable) tests show there is damage. It would not affect his walking or that, but would cause him some issues that he would have to deal with the rest of his life.

They are operating on that part of the spine today or tomorrow to remove bone pieces and that may let the nerves settle down enough to make things right.

His right hand and wrist are broken is 3 or 4 places, so they will pin that together in todays surgery. They will screw and pin his pelvis together in one of the surgeries this week. It looks like he will be under the knife 3 times this week, and several times (maybe next week?) to work on his leg more. I cannot believe how much they are doing surgery one after another after another.

The doctor said the leg injury is a very major and dangerous injury in itself, so adding the others along with it are putting a stress on his body (not to mention all the surgery). They keep pumping blood and antibiotics into him.

They say he will also be in bed for 3 months - but I honestly don't believe that. I think they are just giving the worst case scenario.

Everything could well turn out fine, and he would only end up with some foot/leg issues to tend to the rest of his life. So all of these 'bad' scenarios may be just scares. That is what we are hoping for. In the meantime I am a complete basket case. I cannot even talk about it without crying. Of course Deirdre is steady as a rock, planning what to do when he gets home, communicating with all the family, etc. God only knows what I would do if she was not here!

I was all excited last week and was going to call you to tell you that Dan had just been accepted by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and was going to be there his whole freshmen year. He was really, really looking forward to that.

It will be a miracle if that happens now, but I suppose it could. That may be what makes him determined to get better ASAP. We'll see. Some of his first words when he woke up were, "I will be able to go to Edinburgh won't I?"

A pregnancy pact

My mouth literally dropped open when I read this story in the Boston Globe.

Amazing ... just amazing.

Truly, how stupid can you get?

Frankenstein

This is worth 10 minutes of your time ... especially 4:50 in ...


And holy crap, this is too ...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of a Really Bad Movie

A friend of mine and I went to the see the new Indy movie last Friday ... neither of our wives were interested in seeing it, so we decided to go because we're both fans of the franchise.

So we head the to theater all excited at seeing (an albeit older) Indy again ... over two hours later we walked out shaking our heads and wondering what in the hell we had just watched.

Ye gods, it was bad. When the lights came up after the credits starting rolling, my friend and I just sat there then looked at each other and were at a loss for words.

As we walked out of the theater, my friend summed it up well: "Dude, that movie sucked ass." Indeed. It was so bad, I actually nodded off a couple of times. It felt like a bunch of different people made parts of the movie which were then mashed together.

I've been trying to come up with a list of problems I had with this movie, and then my friend sent me this link and the writer sums up my feelings perfectly.

As for Shia LaBeouf, who plays a Indy's son (c'mon, I'm not spoiling anything for you if you haven't seen the film yet ... in one of the thinnest plot lines in the movie, you know this kid is going to turn out to be Indy's son minutes after he's on screen for the first time) I just can't stand this guy as an "actor" (and I use that term loosely). I thought I didn't like him in Transformers because of his character. Nope ... turns out, he sucks as an actor. To say he's one dimensional is being kind.

Spielberg and Lucas really blew it with this movie. What kills me is that all we've been hearing prior to the film's release is that it took 19 years to come to fruition because everyone was waiting for the right script. Really?!? This was the "right" script?!?

As I was watching the movie, I kept realizing that it was making little sense and I was trying, really trying to like it. That's when I knew I was in trouble ... when I have to will myself to like a movie.

And what really astounds me is that this movie is getting good reviews, even from reviewers that are notoriously tough on films.

I can't remember the last time I was this disappointed in a film. At least "The Dark Knight" comes out soon,

Sign O' the Times

I went to gas up my car yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to "only" be paying $3.99 a gallon.

Ye gods

Basketball observations

As many of you may know, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has his own blog (www.38pitches.com) and he recently posted some comments about watching courtside Game 2 of the NBA Finals. If you have a minute, it's worth a read because Schill is an admitted casual fan at best, but his comments are made from the perspective of a professional athlete, so he has a different take on things, especially about the Lakers' Kobe Bryant. (If you check out the post, his Game 2 comments are towards the bottom.)

Anyway, he ends the post with this:

"I think it’s fantastic that there seems to be this mutual support thing going on here in (New England). You fans are being treated to your third World Championship appearance since last October and that’s awesome. But at each one there seems to be a crossover, Celts and Sox at the Super Bowl, Pats, Bruins and Celts at the World Series, and last night Sox and Pats all over the place. Cool stuff."

It wasn't until I read this that it occurred to me that this is something I noticed, too. I remember thinking about how many jerseys from other Boston-based sports teams you always seem to see in crowd shots at these games. Even Sox road games, which always feature a healthy amount of Red Sox jerseys, you'll see Pats, Bruins and Celtics jerseys ... especially now with the C's in the Finals. Very cool, indeed!

Even with the Pats loss in February, it's been an amazing sports run in New England these past few years ... here's hoping the C's can bring home the hardware and that the B's aren't far behind.

Zoikes!

Taken from our kitchen window today ... yup, it's hot!

New plan for the world?

Friend of mine sent this to me and it's attributed to comedian Robin Williams. Not sure if he actually said this, but it's a good plan, anyway!

I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.

1) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good ol' boys", we will never "interfere" again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there, anyway. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave . We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone.

5) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home, baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for awhile .

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If t hey don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The language we speak is ENGLISH ... learn it or leave.

Also, the Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, "You want a piece of me?!?"

Ed in rare form

Found this on YouTube ... this is from an HBO special in the late '80s ... was a b-day tribute to Les Paul in which a bunch of guitarists were assembled to pay tribute to the pioneer who invented, among other things, multi-track recording.

Just amazing to see Eddie Van Halen, Tony Levin and Jan Hammer on stage together. Very cool.

More potty talk

Giving Joey a bath tonight and the following exchange occurred:

Joey: (sitting in the tub) Um, Daddy ... ahem ... you forgot to shake it!
Me: (standing in front of the potty doing what guys do standing up) Well, that's because I'm not done yet.
Joey: Oh, OK Daddy ... don't forget!

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.