PLAY snowBALL!!

Thanks to the greatness that is Emily's job, she was able to get four seats for tonight's Twins' season opener against the Angels. We had 12th row seats in between home plate and 3rd base. Crazed Twins fan Nasty Nate and his friend, an even more crazed Twins fan (complete with Minnesota Twins shoes with Minnesota Twins shoe laces) joined us.

Sure Torii Hunter made his debut as a non-Twin. And yeah, he did go 0-4 and strike out in the 9th inning. Oh yeah, Carlos Gomez is going to be a lot of fun for us Twins fans to watch this year. And of course TWINS WIN!!!

But none of that was the story this night. The pictures tell the real story of how baseball opens in the state of Minnesota.


Here I am in our front yard as we are leaving for the game. I'm fired up. It's time to tailgate! Are the coals hot enough for me to throw my burgers on?


The woman behind that parka is Emily. You can see the Metrodome in the background. Insert your own isn't-indoor-baseball-great joke here. Nathan got to the game before we did and said they made a big presentation of showing only 162 more home games to go before the Twins play in their outdoor new stadium. Irony.


My car in the parking lot after the game. Nothing sounds like spring more than anti-lock breaks kicking in on icy roads in front of four-way stop signs and baseballs deflecting off the speakers on the roof of an indoor stadium.

But inside the climate controlled Metrodome, it's always spring.


Here is Joe Mauer's first at-bat of the season. My ears survived the spontaneous and simultaneous shrieking of every girl between 12 and 25 years of age as he stepped to the plate.

And this is for folks like the like The Anginator. The Anginator was one of many people who texted us to say they saw us on ESPN when Torii Hunter first came to bat for the Angels. I guess ESPN first showed Nasty Nate's friend cheering and then panned over to me and Nathan taking pictures of Torii with our digital cameras. This is the picture I took of Torii Hunter while ESPN was taking a picture of me.



It will be weird having someone else besides Torii Hunter roaming centerfield. Carlos Gomez has a long way to go, but two stolen bases, two hits, and two runs is a nice start. Immediately after the game, Gomez went back out to centerfield to practice catching pop flies in the Metrodome. The Twins really need this guy to excel to help with damage control from the Santana trade. It's good to see he is doing his part to help with that mission.

Here's to a 162-0 season.

Pancho Has A Question

Is it really supposed to snow tomorrow?

Because I speak for the both of us when I say we are both sick of having to run on days like this...


Especially when tomorrow is Opening Day for the Twins! Give it up for another year of indoor baseball in Minnesota!

And give it up for Emily, who was able to get some pretty good seats. We're going to the game with Nasty Nate. Should be fun. As per usual, the face of the Twins, Torii Hunter will be starting the season out in the Metrodome in centerfield.

What is unusual is the fact that he now plays for the other team, the Angels, who just happen to be opening their season against the Twins. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a really nice story about how Hunter is fitting in with his new team. Click here to read the story.

The Twins will probably finish third in their division this year. Detroit and Cleveland are superior to them. Chicago is overrated, but Kansas City seems underrated. So I see the Twins battling it out with those two teams for third, significantly behind the Tigers and Indians.

But I have to admit, part of me is cheering for the Angels just because Torii Hunter is now on their team. When I was a kid I had one favorite team: whichever team Nolan Ryan was on. Torii Hunter is that kind of player.

I FAILED!!

This blog may be the last outlet on the web to show ot link to this video, but so be it. Five different people e-mailed this to me. Well, I guess I passed the last four times I took the test.

Happy Holidays Yall

A belated Happy Easter. I am always interested how a holiday of such spiritual and religous siginificance like Easter seems to seemlessly allow for such a secular or commercialized aspect. For example, how Peeps can be associated with the day marking the rising of our Lord Jesus Christ is beyond me. I guess it has also been a holiday for some to mark the upcoming Spring, though it's hard to believe that when it snowed all weekend up here in Minnesota.

Either way, the Pagan Peeps may have to get a holiday of their own. The St. Paul Pioneer Press now has an annual Peeps Diorama Contest. The winner gets a toothbrush for a trophy.

Click here for pictures and the story. There's a Peeps Goodnight Moon, Peeps Gulliver's Travels and Peeps doing yoga, to name a few. Very clever.

Pinche Gatos!!

A few months ago, I was unpacking from a trip, I left the room for two minutes and came back to this.




Make yourself at home, Nacho. A lot of those clothes were clean. The operative word ther being were.

And then about a week later I entered the kitchen and saw Toonces found a new place to hang out. Some of you may think this picture is cute. I know someone who doesn't.



I'll hand it to Toonces: she broke nothing on this sortie to the top of the kitchen, which is full of fragile items. No harm, no foul, I say. But still, seeing her with those crack-addled eyes, like a strung out bull in a china shop, makes me want to scream "Piiiiiiincheeeeee gaaaaaatos!".

Taking My Place In The Human Race

For runners in the Twin Cities, The Human Race is like the first day of school. The weather has a hint of a new season in the air, everyone is back in one place together again, we all have uniforms on, we're all excited to see each other, and we are all back to our cliques (but we have no problem being friendly with the cooler kids in the cooler cliques).

Before I go any further, it is time for full disclosure: a week ago I had no interest in running this race whatsoever. So, I gotta send a shout out to Chad Austin for being the straw that broke the camel's back as it was a conversation I had with him that convinced me to race. Chad and I are both on a committee for Twin Cities Marathon and we had a meeting last Wednesday. At the end of the meeting Chad said he'd see me Sunday at the Human Race.

"Yeah I'll go watch," I told him, "That's what I do every year."

I can't speak for Chad, but he basically looked at me like I had just told him I was going to skip the first day of high school because "I don't feel like going."

So I ended up running the race.


While I'm doling out props and love, I gotta give it up for Gene Niemi for sending me this picture of me he snapped near the finish line.

So like I said, Chad was the straw that broke camel's back. But my two Boston Marathon training partners Nasty Nate and Fancy Kirk also helped. They never pressured me, but each week they reminded me the race was coming up. So when we went for our weekly run on Thursday they made it clear to me how much fun it would be to run the race and be with the team. Especially because the beer and burgers would taste that much better post-race. So, I'm sending a shout out to them too.

I guess I was hesitant to race because I was less than happy with how I ran at the Frozen Half. I just wanted to get back to running for fun and not worry about place and time.

But then I wondered if I was being selfish and realized I'd be missing out in all the fun of running and racing with my friends. And that is way more important than how fast a 36 year-old bald never-was like me runs 8000 meters.

A funny thing happened on the way to the finish line. I ran over a minute faster than I thought I was going to. I knew the Human Race is a ridiculously fast course, but I factored that in, and I figured I break 28:30 and be okay with that.

So I was freaking shocked when the finish line clock was first close enough to read, and it said 27:15. I ended up running a 27:21. One more shout out to a very savvy veteran runner in Apple Valley (sorry Chad, it's not you) who told me if I opened with a 5:45 mile, and then get aggressive at mile two, and I'd end up running a 27:30.


This one came from Fancy Kirk who lent his camera to that Apple Valley savvy veteran runner.

So I opened with a 5:45 mile, felt good and decided at that point to start running aggressively, a mile ahead of schedule.

You know, I've learned it's easy to be zen runner when you don't run the time you want; but it's damn hard to stay even keeled and in the moment when you run over a minute faster than your goal time. Emily can attest to that. I was pretty wired when I got home from the race and post-race festivities on Sunday. And Emily gets the final shout out for putting up with all my weekends and nights spent running and talking about running. She also has been encouraging me to race more and have fun with it.

So as you can tell, I needed this race. I realize now that the TC10 in October and the Frozen Half this winter both affected my confidence. My challenge now is to remember what got me here. It was more than just hard work. It was letting go of trying to run certain times and enjoying every run, whatever it would bring. I wasn't doing that last fall.

My challenge is to hold onto that focus.

Here are some other recaps that are well worth reading.

Click here for Nasty Nate's recap. It's interesting to see how both of us needed the Human Race to give us back the confidence that the Frozen Half took away.

Click here for Chad Austin's take. The guy gets the Standard Deviation Award for how similar his performances have been over the past three years.

Click here to see what New Guy Nick has to say. As his name suggests, he is new to Minnesota, new to Team MDRA, but he's an OG runner. He's also good people. Anyone who will sit across me post-race at O'Garas as I deliver my rants, and not get up and leave out of boredom/frustration, is not just good people, but patient good people.

Los Deets

Los Deets tagged for a meme.

Click here to see his post.

Here are the expectations:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.


1. the Onion Ad Nauseum #13
2.Done, but it's hard to type with one hand (my left hand is holding my place in the book).
3. Done.
4. I quote:
However, the 46 year-old delivery for Tyson foods remains modest and somewhat bewildered by his gifts.

"I only graduated from high school and never went to college, so when people say I'm a hero or genius, I have a hard time believing them," Sullivan told reporters. "I did not have the advantages others have, so I am grateful to God for endowing me with this gift. I do not take it for granted, because I know how much it means to so many people."

Sutton then concluded his remark with his customary, keenly anticipated recitation of the 50 states in alphabetical order."

Thank God the meme instructions didn't have me type the first six sentences because the next sentence is the guy saying all the states up to Maine. Ugh, I wouldn't want to have to type all that out.

Anyway, that reminds me of Lower 48 by The Gourds.



Not the best video quality but the best sound quality I could get.
Texas reference at 4:25
Minnesota reference at 3:24
All the other states that don't matter: 1:46
5. And I will tag Fancy Kirk, Reuben Sandwich, Jocelyn, The Anginator, and Deb.

Los Spurs

Spurs rule.

Los Spurs don't.

Today is March 6, the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo. One hundred seventy-two years ago Santa Anna and Co. topped off a 13 day siege of the Alamo with a final assault of hand-to-hand combat. It took three hours to polish off most of the Texas soldiers at the Alamo. But Texans got the last laugh a month later when they surprised Santa Anna's forces at San Jacinto, and The Republic of Texas was born.

So even though Mexico won the Battle of the Alamo, the battle is regarded as an integral battle in what ultimately lead to Texas Independence. And white boys have been running the show in Texas ever since.

So doesn't it seem like an odd day for the Spurs to celebrate their Latin American fan base by wearing uniforms that say Los Spurs?

Don't get me wrong. I get why they went with a Spanish-themed jersey. Two of the Spurs' players are Argentinian and one of them, Manu Ginobli, is wildly popular. And San Antonio prides itself on its Mexican heritage. So a Spanish-based Spurs jersey makes sense. But maybe having the Spurs market and wear these jerseys in December rather than March 6 makes even more sense.

But that's not what really seems odd to me. My issue is that phrase "Los Spurs" makes even less sense.

First of all, it's not as if their regular uniforms say "THE SPURS" on the front. They just say "SPURS." So the "Los" makes no sense.

Instead, if they wanted a true Spanish version of the uniform it should just say "Spurs" in Spanish. I should look it up, but isn't espuela how you spur in Spanish? Maybe el patron de Los Spurs (Peter Holt, I mean Senor Pedro Holt) didn't want to do that because "Los Spurs" would have to be "Las Espuelas."

A team of 12 tough guys with a feminine ending? I don't think so.

As it stands, I know of no language where "Los Spurs" means anything.

Jucy E-Mail

I am a fan of...
1. The San Antonio Spurs
2. The Nook in St. Paul.
3. La Tuna in San Antonio
4. Jones, my friend in San Antonio, TX.
5. The Anginator, my friend here in Minneapolis.

So what happens when these five forces of goodness mesh in one evening?

This is what happens. Maybe a little context will help.

About five weeks ago, Emily and I went out to The Nook for Jucy Lucys with The Anginator and her husband. Summit Winter Ale was on tap, I had a Matt Birk burger, and the company was good. I was still a little homesick from my last trip home, so I got to thinking, what would be the eqivalent in San Antonio of going to The Nook, where I can get that warm glow of being content?

Well, La Tuna in San Antonio comes close, but the warmth may be lacking when you go in December, since the place has no walls beyond the bar where you get your drink.

But back to Minneapolis five weeks ago. As the Anginator was driving Emily and I home, I had a few rants. In between rants, I remembered my last trip to La Tuna was with Emily and Jones. After Anginator dropped us off, as I was getting ready for bed, I remembered the Spurs were playing that night. I checked the score on-line and was horrified to see they losing by over 20 points. At home! It just seemed logical to e-mail Jones and e-rant against the Spurs.


With Jones at La Tuna. Find the real south Texas blogger and find the south Texas poser.

Little did I know I my letter would make its way into blognation. If I did, I may have cleaned up the language a little and maybe proof-read it so the former vs. latter agreement at the end of the letter didn't get crossed. Actually, I would have done neither. Fuck it.

Click here to read the entry.

His whole post is worth reading, because as I was getting ready for bed, he was at the game. Oddly, I think we both would agree, even though he had great seats, I had the better experience.

Reading his description of the SBC Center experience makes me nostalgic for the old HemisFair Arena where the Spurs played when I was a kid. I wonder if, decaeds from now, people will yearn for the Metrodome the same way we old Spurs fan yearn for The Arena, as we called it. In retrospect, it was a pretty crappy place to watch a game. But there wasn't one damn corporate thing about the place. And that is one reason it is missed.