I'm not sure there's much to this post. Catching up on a missed week. Not much really happens when the team's at home, because I'm at the ballpark all day.

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Sunday night marked the conclusion of our first six-game homestand, and I'm tired. This is due to the fact that:
a) Workdays that start at 10 and end at 11 are long
b) The staff generally goes out for at least a beer or two after every game, and I joined in for going-out after every game but Friday's.
c) I made the ambitious but stupid decision on Sunday morning to get up at 7 to do laundry, despite the fact that Monday was a road game day (home by 6:30) and that I didn't get to sleep until about 3 on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Part of the reason that I didn't get to sleep until 3 on Saturday was due to my friend Cookie. I think Cookie kept me on the phone for about 80 minutes on Sunday night, after about 20 minutes of drunk Saturday night conversation. Cookie's pretty fantastic, one of my two favorite Twin Citizens.

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The good news about the six-game homestand is that we've been granted a day off this week. I'll be taking it on Tuesday.

Instead of working on Tuesday, I will:
Run in the morning.
Go to the library by 10. Check out a book.
Watch Ghana-Brazil at 11.
Go to the eye doctor at 2.
Watch France-Spain at 3.
Perhaps, run again at 5.

I think this is a pretty good substitute for work.

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I wrote a few weeks ago about our odd ownership situation: Husband-wife owner duo, son listed as third-in-command despite lack of experience and, more importantly, lack of presence in the office for most of the offseason.

So, third-in-command is the same general age as the rest of the staff but, as you'd imagine, his position in the organization and his relationship with (son of) / proximity to (in their house) the two owners leads to awkwardness. Like, staff may be out one night, and somebody might do something ridiculous, and the wife of the husband-wife will make a joke or a comment about it the next day or two days later. Not a friendly joke, but a degrading or dismissive or disrespectful joke. (They're pretty Christian, it turns out, and don't quite approve of alcohol-fueled debauchery.) Awkward. Not fun to have a spy in the ranks.

So the natural response is that people avoid third-in-command on the way out, in an effort to not let him know where things might be happening. (Now, we only ever go to the local redneck bar, so he probably should have it figured out by now.)

This came to an awful, weird conclusion on Saturday night, when probably 90 percent of our front office staff members and 95 percent of the players went to the local redneck bar.

A co-worker of mine had gone home to shower (ridiculous) before coming out, and arrived about a half-hour after the rest of the staff. Upon arrival, she said, "Crap. [Third-in-command] was right in front of me when I pulled into the parking lot. He's coming in."

But he never came in.

What could have happened:
a) He didn't find a parking spot, and left.
b) He wrote down license plate numbers of staff or players that were there.

Nothing else, right? That's a bit frustrating because, you know, we're adults. But we were being spied on. Happens, I guess.

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Nemo's father-in-law got a heart transplant on Monday. At last check, he was doing well. Awesome. It was about the best news I'd heard ever. Awesome. Seriously. Really cool.

Nemo's also coming to the ring finernail on Saturday. Not as awesome, but pretty cool, too.

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I should clarify last week's statement about jumping on the Tigers bandwagon. This is not a permanent move, but it will sure make following baseball more fun the rest of this season. The Cubs are in the blood, and they're always my number one team. But the fact is that, for now, my focus is on what the Tiges have going on. I watched about three innings tonight. They won. I followed the Cubs on the scroll this evening; they sucked, and I've had enough.

Next year, I'm refocusing on the Cubs, until they're out of it by mid-May.

Steve Phillips just advocated the Tiges trading Joel Zumaya for John Smoltz. Even now, I think the Tiges would get the short end of that deal. Stick Zumaya in the closer's role, and watch the magic happen. He's awesome.

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If the first eight weeks of the NBA playoffs proved anything, it's that uptempo is back. (Unfortunately, the final four games proved that isolation and lots of fouls still win championships.)

Due to this fact, I want the Bulls to draft either Brandon Roy or Adam Morrison, and run like hell next year. The recipe the Suns used - 6-8 Boris Diaw at center, and a bunch of shooters - is a recipe that matches the Bulls personnel.

A Duhon-Gordon-Hinrich-Deng-Nocioni lineup could absolutely win in the NBA. Run, run, run. Envision Deng in the Marion role, and it works perfectly.

Who I don't want the Bulls to draft:
LaMarcus Aldridge, who is big and not much else.
Tyrus Thomas, who is a prospect because of four games.

Who I wouldn't mind them drafting:
That Italian dude, because I like Euros and I like guys called "The Next Dirk."

I don't usually read ESPN Magazine, but my free copy arrived today. There's a Mock Draft in there...and then the writer badmouths every mock selection that he's just made. It's absolutely awful.

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R/DS update: I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me; or, at least, I'm pretty sure that he completely resents me now. Though I'm pretty sure it's the first. He's taken to avoidance methods, leaving our shared office and heading to the broadcast booth by noon for a 7:00 game. I usually head down to the booth at about 5 and, by the time I get there, we're pretty much always moving to different rooms or conversing with different individuals. Works fine for me.

Related to last week's WIDiRViFOW:
During a broadcast this week, a runner was at second.

He: "Good hitter's count here. Do you think about the hit and run?"
Me: [I forget how I responded]

End of the inning:
Me: "I really don't think there's such thing as a hit and run with a runner at second?"
He: "Sure there is."
Me: "I disagree. You understand the strategy of the hit and run. You open up the opposite field - - "
He: "Yeah, of course I understand. With a guy at second, the batter aims towards the hole the third baseman leaves."
Me: "That's a pretty small spot to do it."
[pause]
He: "If I don't know something as simple as that, what right do I have to be doing this at all?"
Me: [looks to field, thankfully noticing that action is about to resume and our commercial is almost over]

At some point in the conversation, I said, "Please don't ever ask me about a hit-and-run with a man at second, because I don't think it exists."

Later in the broadcast, during a commercial, he cursed and declared me right. He never answered my question, "Why the change of heart?"

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The R/DS likes rooms to be completely freezing. He sets the apartment wall AC to 64 degrees. 64 degrees, which is, you know, cold. At the ballpark, he sets the hotel-style wall AC unit to "High Cool," which is also very cold.

So, on Sunday, I arrived at the office before he did. Doing advance damage, I turned on the office AC to Fan (rather than High Cool), and turned the temperature gauge to just to the blue side of the Red-Blue diagram.

R/DS walks in about 10 minutes after I did.

Before he could say "Hello" or "Good morning" (he never said "Hello" or "Good Morning"), he said, "IS THE AC SET TO 'FAN'?" "Yes." "DO YOU MIND IF I TURN IT TO 'COOL'?" "Go ahead."

And he did, and it was very cold.

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WIDiRVoFOW

This Week's Reason: He's got a whole bunch of never-used crap in the fridge.

List of Unused Items Jamming the Refrigerator (all since I arrived in mid-April...no joke!):

An unopened bag of Ida Red apples, in the crisper
A half-eaten two-pound bag of carrots, now sprouting
A unopened jar of cherry juice
A half-consumed pitcher of instant iced tea
One bottle of locally-produced wine
At least four bottles related to a beer home-brewing kit (both of these despite the fact that he doesn't drink)

Also, on top of the fridge, a five-pound bag of potatoes purchased at the end of April. Lots of sprouts on that one.

No further description needed. He sucks.