New Visitor

Lots of Titmice, Chickadees, and common Sparrows at the feeder this morning. Also one solitary Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus) made a first time appearance.
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I'm afraid to stop looking at the feeder because I might miss something.

Jitters

Sox are down 4-0 against Cleveland in the fifth and Dice K is not exactly overpowering. This is going to be a dogfight to get to the World Series.
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They just pulled Dice-K. If the Sox can't find a starter other than Becket, they will lose this series to the very talented Cleveland team.

Stoicism

Sunday, I could hardly walk with the calf pain shooting up to the area behind my knee. I'm pretty sure that nobody in the family noticed, because I always take pain like a man. No complaining.... no whining.....no whimpering. Naturally, I laid off the workout.
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Today I had to go to Worcester with Mike Rockett. We met with the State rep, Bob Spilane, and the City Manager, Mike O'Brien - two very sharp guys who were great ambassadors for investing in Worcester. The only trouble I had was trying to keep up with them on a quick walking tour around some downtown buildings.
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If I can't walk a block around Worcester, how the hell am I going to run 26 miles from Hopkinton to Boston????
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It's starting to seem like I'll need a visit to Lourdes to get this bum leg in shape, so I can work out again. Tomorrow, we'll see if the Cybex loosens up things a bit.
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Meanwhile the Dory work lies fallow, and the basement tile project mocks me everytime I go down there. The only thing that is moving forward is Nanepashemet Telecom. For that , I'm very grateful

Patriots Stay Pat

In a football match of the undefeated, the Patriots blew past the Dallas Cowboys like they were just another opponent. They are now 6-0. This is one hell of a season.
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McMahon, and his girlfriend, Alissa, dropped by after the game to drink some twisted teas. And you wonder why he is defending Peep of the Year??? It should be obvious.

Minor Setbacks

Cleveland waited until the 10th inning after 1:00 am in the morning to tee off on Boston with 7 runs. Now the series is tied 1-1. Cleveland is good.
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But what is really disappointing is that my left leg is painful to walk on - forget running. The calf pain now extends to the back of the knee and runs up my inner thigh. I'm thinking that it relates to the sciatica that I suffered maybe ten years ago. Doubt that I will get in a running workout today, so I'll probably row the harbor and cycle the Cybex.
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A little pain in the lower extremity didn't stop me from enjoying a visit from Will Nestor, my handsome 5 month old grandson though. He and I continue to communicate on a psychic level, and he mentioned that the Dory seems to be falling off schedule. Maybe he's worried that it won't be ready for me to teach him to row and fish. Already, he's looking for instant gratification. He also telepathically told me stuff that he didn't want me to repeat.
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The Kid has a lot to learn.

Fenway Layout

Baseball is a weird game, playing on fields that aren't rigidly regulated, with high walls and varied distances to them. Fenway Park is the embodiment of this.

Just marking time until the game starts at 8:00 PM tonight.

Successful Lives

These guys are the embodiment of success. Both Veterans of the 101st Airborne, Easy Company. I don't care how much money you make, the house you have, or the size of your boat.... you'll have to go quite a bit further to be more successful than them.

Edward Heffron, left, and William Guarnere pose with their book in Broomall , Pa., Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007. World War II veterans Guarnere and Heffron have written 'Brothers in Battle: Best of Friends,' published by the Berkley Publishing Group. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Harsh Dicotomy

I'm both optimistic and demoralized over my marathon training program. I've never had the discipline to always get a workout in before, but this has been accomplished. That is optimistic.
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Feeling like crap and being in pain in every workout is demoralizing.
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How's that for the Yin and the Yang?
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Over at the Marblehead Middle School Soccer fields this morning, I couldn't even finish three miles on level grass because I was afraid to push the pain in my left leg. It's not as much the pain that bothers me as the prospects of an injury that would force me out of the training regimen.
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191 days to the Boston Marathon. This is a lot harder than it was thirty years ago.

Too Much for Tuna Lips

Red Sox pummeled the Cleveland Indians last night, 10 - 3 at Fenway. A nice start to the American League Championship Series for Boston
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BTW, how does Cleveland get away with a crazy looking Indian as its logo? Where are all the politically correct, social controllers on this????
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To me, it is too offensive to offer any offense at all.
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To be honest, the logo looks a little like Manny Ramirez with really big teeth... except for the feather. Manny has maintained silence on this... so far.
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That reminds me...
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Watching Ramirez and Ortiz last night as masters of the art of hitting a baseball was awe inspiring. They continually showed extreme skill, professionalism and coolness as they controlled the strike zone during 10 at bats, where they got on base on each and every trip to the plate.
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What a pitching nightmare they present!!! Even Tuna Lips might be intimidated.

Gore's Global Warming

I Don't get all the hubbub over Al Gore. If his own state of Tennesee had voted for him, he would have been President of the United States. What did they know that all the other Dems didn't?
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So he loses the election, then wins an Emmy, an Oscar, and the Nobel Peace Prize. I saw parts of his environmental film and it seemed like a real political diatribe. More rhetoric than science.
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This whole idea that we have control of the Earth's climate is highly pretentious. The climate is always changing.
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Does Gore think that mankind caused the last ice age ... only a short 10,000 years ago???? I personally prefer global warming over another glacier run.
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Now they have drumming for him to enter the Presidential campaign again.
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I don't get it.

POTW Week 41

If I had known all of the anxiety that I would create by telling you Peeps about my quest, I would have kept it to myself. All day long.... hysterical emails, neurotic voicemails... all because I can't tell you what I doing.
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So Guess What????
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You don't deserve to know. Freaking psychos.

Announcing.....

Nanepashemet Peeps of the Week for the 41st week of 2007.

• Larry David
• Trish Theriault
• Louis Levy
• John Hynes
• Mike Lowell
• Rachel Ray

I still can't tell you about the quest.

Here We Go Again

Off on another crazy, kooky, quest that I can't tell you about now. I've been down this road before, and really can't understand why I would return, but here I am. Maybe it will turn out differently this time.

Homecoming

Mike came home from DC last night. He's giving a presentation in Boston for Bearingpoint. It's really neat to hear him talk business with Katelyn at dinner. Makes you think that you did your job as a parent when you see your kids prosper.
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Although, they are still your kids even if they act really clueless and stupid.

Seasoned Advise

This morning was the first normal run that I have had in the past two weeks. I think it is because I heeded the advice of that seasoned jock, Pat Piscatelli, and stretched out well before my easy two mile haul.
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I figure that anybody who could strike out Mo Vaughn in prep school must know something.
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Pat k'd Mo while twirling for Taft School of Waterbury, CT. I heard that they still talk about it down there.

Back to the Boat

I know that I have been dwelling on my running regimen lately, much to the demise of all of you who yearn for any kernel of information about the Dory construction.
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Admittedly, the Dory has been neglected for the past week, but I have plans to rev it up this week. If enough customers decide that Nanepashemet Telecom is worthy of payment, I'll hire Kevin Rockett to come in and help with the basement tile job, allowing me to make some progress on the Dory that everybody seems to be so concerned about.
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The frames are all done and waiting to be attached to the dory bottom and the strongback. I have to sand them before making the connection though.
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So Back Off. I didn't forget you or your freaking Dory project.

No Sweat

My workout was painful today. I had a lot of trouble with my left calf as I went uphill, and my back felt really skittish.... like I could throw it out at any time.
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I have some options.
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Giving up is not one of them.
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Tomorrow, I'll run two miles on the Marblehead Middle School track before the sun comes up. See how the level track surface affects the calf pain. If that doesn't work, it is back to the Cybex stationary bike, but I'll probably go for a minimum of 40 Min. a session for the rest of the week.
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I have ten weeks to train before the serious, 18 week marathon program begins. It's way too early to panic.

Happy Columbus Day

Columbus Day is one of those nuisance holidays. Enough of your customers work, but you can't go to the bank or receive mail.
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It's probably losing its significance too because of the Native American reaction to white Europeans coming to America and wiping out indigenous populations with their microbes and religious inspired brutality.
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Italians like it, but even though my two partners are of Italian descent, they didn't seem to be in a celebratory mode today. Columbus showed up here a little over 500 years ago. A blink of a gnat's eyelash in the timescale of Mother Earth. What a difference a half of a millennium makes!
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I wonder when this technology curve will level out.

Management Effectiveness

You really have to wonder about the effectiveness of Steinbrenner's motivational abilities. You would think that a businessman with his experience would realize that threats almost never produce positive results.

BTW, the Red Sox completed a sweep of the Angels tonight to go to the American League Championship Series, and the Patriots beat the Browns to go 5 and 0. It's nice to be a Boston fan.

Steinbrenner isn't good enough to own the Yankees.

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NEW YORK (AP) -Win or else! That was George Steinbrenner's message to Joe Torre before the New York Yankees played the Cleveland Indians on Sunday night.

With the Yankees trailing 2-0 in the best-of-five, first-round playoff series, Steinbrenner reverted to the blustering boss of old and said Torre likely wouldn't return as manager unless New York reaches the AL championship series for the first time in three years.

"His job is on the line,'' the owner was quoted in Sunday's editions of The Record of New Jersey. "I think we're paying him a lot of money. He's the highest-paid manager in baseball, so I don't think we'd take him back if we don't win this series.''

Torre was hired before the 1996 season and led the Yankees to four World Series titles in his first five years but none since. New York last reached the World Series in 2003, wasted a 3-0 lead against Boston in the 2004 ALCS, then was eliminated by the Angels and Detroit in the first round the last two years.

"You're not surprised by whatever comes down the pike,'' Torre said. "You don't always get used to it, but you understand if you want to work here - and there's a great deal of upside to working here - that there are certain things you have to deal with. We've had ultimatums during the season, early in the season. This obviously is down to a game we need to win, and you'd like to believe everybody's trying to pull in the same direction.''

Cocktail Shift

Even though it's been unseasonably warm in New England for October, the leaves are turning and it is time to give the Dark and Stormies a rest.
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Those of you who have been most attentive know that autumn at the Nanepashemet Blog means time to roll out the classic fall cocktail...... Apple Cider and Seagrams VO.
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It's just not right to watch the Patriots play football without one. Or three.

Horsing Around

Yesterday, Joanne and I went horseback riding with the Murray's at Black Mountain in Jackson , NH. My horse's name was Chip, and he was a gamer. I wouldn't want a big load like me on my back for an hour as I walked around a mountain, but incredulously, Chip didn't seem to mind. He must have been sensing the cowboy in me.
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Linda Murray was bragging alot about what an accomplished horsewomen she was, and we weren't buying it 100%.
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I was nervous for Joanne, but she did very well. Got on and off the horse well, and stopped shaking by the time we were leaving the mountain.
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Hope Chip is OK.