You don't know me

Between 2005 and 2012 I was in Iraq and Afghanistan for about 4 of those years. I'd do a year tour (2 years one time) with a couple of weeks home every 3-6 months. That time was much harder on my wife than it was on me. All I had to worry about was me and work. She had the boys to take care of. Between sports, scouts, and all the other crap that our kids get involved in, she kept everything going. About 5 years or so ago my wife started a job that kept her on the road Monday thru Friday for a couple of months. You'd think that I had never parented prior to that. I had a very rough time.

I guess it was just a little too subtle for your brand. I'll be a bit more direct next time.

Who's Brian Robinson?

Logbook made my inner child giggle.

Fuck. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34795140/hall-fame-reliever-cy-young-winner-bruce-sutter-dies

I am not optimistic about the postseason. Really limping along now.

Very true. There could be people on here that I sat next to in school that wouldn't know me if I plastered my name and picture on this site.

I'm not saying that I didn't see racist shit, because I did. But a slave auction just goes well beyond anything that I ever saw. My family is from Mississippi, so yeah, I heard some racist stuff. I was born there, but my parents moved away just about right after I was born. I've lived all over when I was a kid. West Texas (Midland/Odessa area), Georgetown, Jarrell, Blytheville AR, Richmond VA, Chicago (twice), St. Louis, and then down to Sugar Land starting in my sophomore year of high school. To be honest, with all the moving we did, I never made close friends until I got to the Houston area. Even then I was horribly shy. I was also younger than everyone by a full year, and to top it off I was a runt until my sophomore year. I just never really ran with the 'popular' crowd, so I guess I was extremely sheltered. Freshman year of high school I was living in St. Louis out in the suburbs. At that time they were busing inner city kids out to our school. For the most part things were okay, but there was definitely some tension. At wrestling practice one day we were running sprints in this really long hallway. Half the team was on one side of hall and the other half was on the opposite side. 2 kids would sprint down the middle and get back in line. One of the inner city kids, who was our heavyweight, got to the end and accidentally bumped into this white kid. The white kid went straight to "you dumb" n word. Everyone got quiet and I fully expected the inner city kid to just beat the shit of him. But he didn't, he just kept quiet and didn't even acknowledge it. I know he heard it, but I'm sure that he had been warned of stuff like that by his parents and was told to just let it go. To this day I have no idea how he kept himself from beating the shit out of that kid. Long way to say that just because I wasn't aware of really overt and publicly racist shit going on, doesn't mean that it wasn't there. I probably just didn't know about it because I didn't really hang out with a lot of people because I was not popular at all and was extremely shy.

Winslow sounds like a nice place to take it easy.

I'm older, but I honestly don't recall anything that bad when I was in high school in the 80s. Doesn't mean that it wasn't around, just that I was probably oblivious to it.

Please tell me that you are REALLY old or that it happened several decades before you were there.

Good news, no new shart thread entry. Family day last Wednesday and then graduation on Thursday went great. He's definitely matured quite a bit. On Friday he moved to AIT, still at Leonard Wood. We were all under the impression that he would start today, but they don't have enough students so it's now supposed to begin next Monday. That also pushed graduation by a week, but that's okay. It was great to spend a couple of days with him.

I saw Nolan pitch in person in Houston and Arlington. The thing that sticks out in my mind is how you could hear him grunt when he pitched. He just put everything he had into it. Now that I'm in my 50s I have an even greater appreciation for his longevity.

I do keep this on my desk:

I can't remember who said it in the documentary, but the guy said something like this: If you're digging into the box and Nolan is waiting on you, you're gonna get one in your ear hole.

Yeah, I can't remember the last time that I watched the Pro Bowl. May have been in the 80's.

The boy graduates BCT on Thursday. They've checked all the boxes, so now all they are doing is cleaning. They did the 4 day culminating field exercise (Anvil, I think) last week. The only streamers that his platoon won were for physical stuff (obstacle course, stuff like that). I guess they are stupid but strong. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. They have family day on Wednesday, so we will be driving out to Fort Leonard Wood both Wednesday and Thursday. He's already planning what he wants to eat on Wednesday. I hope he doesn't join the shart thread on Thursday at graduation.

On fucking Apple TV. Figures.

Brian's Song (the original) has to be on any list like this.

Watching ep 3 right now. Johnny's internet search autofill has me rolling.

Wow! What a win that was. Nats probably should have been in no doubles there, but I will take it.

Well, that's just because they are fucking stupid.

Well, haven't talked to the boy in a bit, but I have received several letters. The last time that we spoke his mom was out with one of our other boys, so when he called her she conferenced me in (I told him before he left that when he does get a chance to call, he must call her first and then he call me if she doesn't answer). They had finished qualification with iron sights and were going to be using the red dot scope thingy the next week. We talked for about 15 minutes and he said that he was going to call his girlfriend. A few minutes after we hung up, his mom texted me and said that he had already called her back. I figured something wasn't right, so I called her. Girlfriend told him that she had "seen" someone else. I had thoughts that something like that would happen while he was gone and warned him about it before he left. In his most recent letter, he said that although I had told him that I hoped that didn't happen while he was gone, he said that he couldn't think of a better time for it to happen. Kid seems to have his head right. Yesterday was his birthday, so it was a bit of a difficult day for mom. This is him. ETA: He's actually a lefty, but I guess he's right-eye dominant. I had no idea.

How bad was Votto? Was he Edmonds bad?