Diary of a Diehard

New Years is an interesting concept that I never really understood. How exactly did replacing a calendar become a holiday? The conspiracy theorist in me believes that no matter what the official reasons were for celebrating New Years Day, it was probably a marketing ploy by the Hallmark Corporation to try and pump up the sales of cards and calendars. It is not just replacing a calendar that is odd but it is how people react to this event. All around the world tonight people will join together and consume large amounts of alcohol as they carefully watch the clock and count down the seconds until all 2007 calendars will become obsolete. They will then wildly cheer, throw small torn pieces of paper into the air and kiss complete strangers. They will then sing and dance late into the night then try to navigate the police infested streets trying to avoid field sobriety tests. After a few short hours of sleep these people will drag themselves out of bed and curse being alive as they find that their headache is more painful than being a Tampa Bay Ray lifetime season ticket holder.

Continue reading ‘Looking Forward to Looking Back’ »

The World Wide Web can be a fascinating place filled with amazing and wondrous things. It can also be a magnet for the bizarre. Whenever you open a browser window it is like starting a new adventure. I often feel like an archeologist about to uncover some long lost civilization or a tidbit of knowledge that has been hidden from the general public since the beginning of time; Internet time that is. Of course the exact opposite is also true. It is entirely possible that you will wander upon the most strange and unusual information that you ever imagined. I mean how many people do you know that launched their Internet browser actually searching for a Breakfast Cereal Character Guide or Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Museum? Still, once you start searching you become engaged with these sites and they take on some kind of significance. Today I took a circuitous path on the web and uncovered what I thought was a pretty cool site and an even cooler idea.

Continue reading ‘How to Skinit a Snake’ »

To anyone who has happened across this blog and read more than one entry you may have surmised that I am a baseball fan. It was also probably fairly obvious that I don’t follow any other sport with much regularity. With Spring Training, a 162-game regular season, three rounds of play-offs including the World Series, the General Manager and Winter Meetings; there is not much time left to get completely into another sport. Besides, the other sports can’t really even be classified as full sports. I mean most of them have what I would refer to as an abbreviated season playing at most 82 games for the NBA and the NHL and even worse 16 games for the NFL. Very few of these sports even have teams play on consecutive nights let alone for a whole week straight. The worst culprit is of course the National Football League.

Continue reading ‘What’s So Perfect About That?’ »

Quiz Question: When do you know that you are too close to a team and a subject?

Answer: When the subject starts invading your dreams

I had a fairly fitful night of sleep on the couch after Trina’s birthday. I made a mental note to myself to never give sharp objects to my wife as a gift item if yesterday was any indication. I knew that I was going to be doing some serious shopping today to try and make up for yesterday so as I drifted off to sleep last night my mind was preoccupied. That coupled with a late dinner at El Paso Barbecue seemed to have an odd effect on my subconscious as I began to have what many would probably say were strange and unusual dreams. To me they seemed pretty normal but every time I have recounted them I am met by a awkward glance and a raised eyebrow. One person went so far as to suggest I seek professional help. I have no idea what that means.

Continue reading ‘I Like Dreamin’’ »

Today is my wife Trina’s birthday. I would tell you how old she is but I once suggested that we both take a karate class and I watched in horror as she put a 6 foot 3 inch instructor down on the map and stop within millimeters of putting her fist through his nose lodging it into his brain. It was at that moment that I realized I have absolutely no control in my marriage and some 26 years later I still live in fear of my life. Let’s just say that Trina does not look a day older than she did when I first met her in high school. I cannot possibly imagine what it must be like having a birthday just 2 days after Christmas. As a kid that had to be the worst. You really couldn’t have a birthday party since everyone was away for Christmas holiday. Most of the gifts that you received would be wrapped in Christmas paper. Trina tells a story that once when she was little she was given a pair of pajamas. She received the tops for Christmas and the bottoms for her birthday. That has to be one of the most depressing things a kid could imagine. I mean who wants pajamas for their birthday? I would have much rather gotten a G.I. Joe with life-like hair and a kung-fu grip. Based upon her horrendous childhood birthday experiences I made a promise to myself that I would always try to make her birthday special.

Continue reading ‘How To Sleep On the Couch in One Easy Step’ »

As if my life were not frantic enough, fate threw me a wild card. For the past four years I have been using IX Web Hosting as my hosting service. They have been very good to work with and their service has been outstanding. One of the few drawbacks has been that IX Web Hosting has been content to maintain their servers with PHP4. This version is nearing its end of life and as such needs to be upgraded. I inquired of IX Web Hosting what their plans were for supporting PHP5 since both Now Hitting and Diary of a Diehard both utilize PHP for some of their processing. Technical support informed me that they had a new server configuration which would meet my needs. All it would take would be for me to migrate my data from the existing server to the new server configuration. How hard could that be?

Continue reading ‘To Server and Protect’ »

“The best kind of prize is a surprise.” That quote uttered by Johnny Depp’s character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory never rang more true than today. After a long and sleepless night where I looked at the clock more times than Chris Young struck out last season; Christmas morning finally arrived. While the kids rested quietly in their beds I was up pacing the floor waiting for them to get up. What a weird turn of events. It is usually the kids who are up early while the parents are begging for a few more minutes of sleep before getting up to begin the gift unwrapping extravaganza. But then most parents probably have not been waiting for an Arizona Diamondbacks National League Western Division Championship sweatshirt for nearly three months either. So with some well placed noises and rustling the other members of my family finally awoke from their slumber and got up. We all rushed downstairs to see what wonderful gifts Santa Claus had left us during his late night visit.

Continue reading ‘The Perfect Gift’ »

From a holiday perspective Christmas is about as close to baseball as anything I have found when it comes to excitement. To prove that point I briefly considered republishing the updated Twas the Night Before Christmas entry that I posted the night before Spring Training began under the title Spring Training Eve. But I figured you deserved new content rather than something that could be found using the search box on this blog. So instead I’ll focus my comments on what this day and this holiday means to me. There is nothing quite like the anticipation waiting for Christmas morning to arrive. Part of the excitement can be attributed to wondering what gifts may be awaiting you under the Christmas tree. More often though the excitement is building to see what others may think of the gifts you had gotten for them. With a family of 5 children, every Christmas Eve sees the excitement levels reach epidemic proportions. Trina of course would argue that this family contains 6 children since in her eyes I have not quite begun acting like an adult. A fact that many times I pride myself on.

Continue reading ‘Twas the Night Before…’ »

On September 28, 2007 I like many Diamondbacks fans were glued to the television to watch the opening of the final 3 game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. This game had huge implications as the Diamondbacks were still trying to seal a play-off spot. That night Brandon Webb took the mound and beat the Colorado Rockies. This win coupled with a loss by the San Diego Padres allowed the Diamondbacks to secure a play-off berth and become the National League Western Division champion. There was a tremendous celebration on the field with the players leaping into each other’s arms. At our house there was a similar celebration with me and the kids dancing around the family room throwing root beer and Sprite into the air much to the chagrin of Trina who is still finding sticky spots on the walls and floor. As part of the celebration the Diamondbacks were given T-shirts and hats commemorating their victory and NL West championship. They were also given sweatshirts with the NL West Champion posted to the front. I of course would have to have one of these sweatshirts to remind myself of the magical year I had just witnessed. I rushed to the Diamondbacks shop on MLB.com (the team shop was closed by this time). The online shop already had the sweatshirts listed as available and I quickly placed an order. According to the confirmation page I should expect to see my sweatshirt within a week which should be plenty of time for me to have it for the post season; or so I thought.

Continue reading ‘The Long Lost Package’ »