Valentine Day 2007...no big thing ...

...especially for this geezer. The giant snow storm that so many of the breathless weather newscasters tried to wish for the area hasn't materialized. We have a couple of inches of very tiny snowflakes and sleet mixed in as of the moment, but for crying out loud it's the middle of February isn't it?

The pitchers and catchers have already reported or will report in the next couple of days, but even for me I will have to suspend the reality of the absurd bloated egos and salaries of the players and try to just see them again as the boys of summer if I am to get back that feeling that all is right in the world which usually comes with the start of spring training.

The heart shaped box of Whitman's Samplers that I got for Mrs is still OK. But I bet that sitting here alone with me and her box of chocolates isn't exactly what she would really wish for today. Me either!

addendum added post the time of this story's previous posting an hour or so ago....It's not that she doesn't like me or vice versa. It's just that holidays lately don't mean as much unless one or more of the grandkids and/or kids are either here or at least in touch.

Valentines Day 2007. No big thing.

Take This Test....

I ran across this test today. I took it and the results put me near Gandhi. Believe me, I am not Gandhi. But Gandhi and I probably do share something. We both want things to be a "certain way". He did, or tried to do something about it. I do not. There are doers and there are watchers.

My score: Economic line -7
Social Lib/Authoritarian line -3.85

...take it.

When It Was Really Something.....

There are only 18 days or so until "it's finally over day". I don't like saying this but I am saying it. For the longest time I started the Christmas season very early, before Thanksgiving even. Larry Duhaime and I would take the afternoon off. He was a salesman and I was sort of his boss but we would both take the afternoon off and go toy shopping. We both had a bunch of kids and we both loved to buy toys. We would stash them in the car trunk, pile them up in the office around our desks, even sneak a few into the house when no one was home. This would go on and off for the next month or so leading up to Christmas Eve and scenes like this one when everything was simple....or at least seemed to be.

This little homely shot was in 1965. For a lot of reasons it was easy to ignore the reality of Vietnam, The civil rights wars, the recent near death experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis...all that kind of stuff and simply bask in the fun and anticipation of Christmas.

Now it's not the same. I fret and moan and mark January 2 down in my head as "it's finally over" day. The whole holiday season grinds to a halt and I begin to hope that something will happen in the next ten months that will let me get back to just "taking the afternoon off" and going toy shopping next Christmas.

Back in the Last Century....

As they say in the movies nowadys, back in the day I might have had a lot to say today. See the archives here at the old Thereyouhaveit.com.

Today, I only breathe a sigh.....maybe of relief that the bush/Cheney/Rove crowd didn't get another victory to call a mandate or maybe just relief that this election season is over.

Now I wait for about 105 days or so until pitchers and catchers report down in Florida.

Another Day on the Sound...

So we were out sailing on the Sound. More specifically ghosting since the wind was not exactly howling and we decided to duck into Mystic Harbor for our annual visit. Now I am not normally a person who gawks at the places where the rich display that fact, but here I have to make an exception. There is a place that I truly like and I envy the owner despite the fact that he is filthy rich.
What do you think of this place?Isn't it just perfect? OK, OK maybe not quite perfect, but still...And Then there was this place. Pretty close to perfect too don't you think. The guy peering over at the boats thinks so. And why not. Maybe this is an even better place to envy and covet. Easier to maintain certainly. But nah, I don't really think so. I see myself sitting in one of those white chairs for the rest of my days. Sitting, contemplating the nature of things, waiting for whatever I am waiting for, thinking about the fact that I am not a cormorant, and glad that I am not, watching all the guys (and girls) out for Sunday boat rides sail and motor past, big boats, little boats, nice boats, not so nice boats, thinking about just about nothing some of the time, except maybe having a nice bowl of macaroni for supper.

Timeshots Revisited

Timeshots Revisited

This is an attempt by me to become sort of a cool blogger who can publish via email. Back in the last century, when I created There You Have it, I could barely use a now defunct little wed publishing program that came with early versions of Internet Explorer. And now here I am trying this email stuff.

 

What's next?

A New Camera but...

...the same old outlook. It's been a few weeks since I whined here about the holidays and the upcoming "days of nothing to do except enjoy nothing to do". They are here and I am doing nothing. I did get a new digital camera. It's a pretty nice camera and it looks a little like cameras used to look back in the days of real cameras. The problem is that it did not come with a booklet of tricks to get a new outlook or a renewed outlook or keys to finding moments of truth which have been hard to come by lately.

Getting a new outlook will be a lot harder than selling a few unwanted things on eBay, including the older digital camera and a few really older "real" cameras and some unusable laser discs of great movies. And some other odds and ends that I could just as easily have thrown away.

I am going to find that new outlook. I am tempted to erase all my old pictures and other histories. The clean slate approach......

Just a Thought or Two...

It's after Christmas and before that most useless of holidays, New Years Day and the post holiday silliness of New Years Eve. For me, I can now feel that the end of yet another holiday period is coming to it's end.

Everyone knows that the real new year begins around Labor Day . Then there is the "holiday season" and that is followed by the rest of the year.After the holiday season, there are about 250 days of just ordinary life. And I don't necessarily mean this book.

I mean just living without the holiday season looming. In just a few days I will be there, it will be the rest of the year. Maybe that is what we ought to call December 31. We could call it 'It Will Finally Be Here Day'

Here I would ordinarily insert a nice long sigh..................

Paradise Cancelled

Alright, maybe it isn't what everyone woud think is paradise, but it does come close when the weather is nice and the boat is comfortable. The last time I was there I was cold. That was in October of 2003.

We promised that we would return this year, we missed it last year. But today I cancelled. I have lost my appetite for chilly days and damp nights on a sailboat in late October. And mornings like this with my coffee are now remembered more like this. This was me on the last morning we were there. In 2003.

The promise of this sort of warmth is only a memory. Like this picture that we snapped sailing in, maybe back in 1999.

The Fat Lady Has Done Her Thing

Yesterday, somewhere around supper time I knew that the season was over. The Fat Lady had just about finished her song and the radio guy was done saying "there's a drive....way back way back. Manny had done his thing twice, Ortiz had hit one out and someone had to get on to to get to him one more time. Didn't happen. Wait till next year.

Sounds familiar and somehow, proper.

Amazingly Enough, I have not much to say about...

... yesterdays game other than to point out the fact that the game was played by linking this story which talks about the Red Sox game yesterday. In fact, I agree with most of it's calm analysis . And that is that.

I will watch today's game since I can't remember a time when I did not either watch or listen to the last game of the season regardless of the standings.

I think that I sort of hope that it is the final game of the season. I am getting sick of the wild card thing.

Here We Go Again

Back toward the end of the 20th century, I created a web site and a domain called thereyouhaveit.com. It was sort of fun. I posted pretty regularly and talked about a lot of stuff. politics, baseball, baloney-fat, the idiot running for President who didn't have a prayer, and lots of general things that were in the news and on the internet. What I didn't know is that this form would become known as a web log or blog. What do you know, I was an early days blogger. After a while, and with no more than half a dozen regular readers a day I got bored and quit posting.

The site still exists. Have a look if you feel like it. Some of the stuff is still fairly timely and many of the links actually still work. Here it is.

The only thing I will address today is the Red Sox. And here's to the fact that here they go again too. Life is returning to normal. Read about it here.

Look for more stuff from time to time