jayratkowski.com

Friday 8/22:
Brewer game!  I love Friday night baseball.  Something about the atmosphere just makes it so much more fun.  I think it’s something about everyone finally getting out of work after a long week and just letting go and enjoying the game.  Brewers played the Pirates.  We had great seats, it was a fun game and the hometown boys won 10-4.

View from our seats

Friday was also my first fantasy football draft; for the free league I’ve run the last several years.  Since I was at the game, I missed the draft.  However, I spent ages pre-ranking my players and it actually worked to my advantage.  Despite the fact that Yahoo will fill all starting roster spots before bench spots, I still got a pretty good team.  The draft order in this league was based on last years performance, and since I sucked, I had the #1 pick (snaking order, 8 teams)  Here’s my draft picks:

1. (1) LaDainian Tomlinson

2. (16) Terrell Owens

3. (17) Reggie Wayne

4. (32) Reggie Bush

5. (33) Brandon Marshall

6. (48) Kellen Winslow

7. (49) Matt Hasselbeck

8. (64) New York

9. (65) Shayne Graham

10. (80) Greg Jennings

11. (81) LenDale White

12. (96) Chris Chambers

13. (97) Donovan McNabb

14. (112) Alge Crumpler

I’m decently pumped about my team.  I think I have awesome wideouts and running backs.  The Giants defense is probably going to get dropped because of the hits they’ve taken on the D-Line, but I’m not terribly worried about that.  In fact, while I was posting, I just dropped NJ-A and picked up Seattle.

There was also some good preseason football Friday night.  Cowboys looked really good and Crayton even might have stopped Dallas fans from freaking out about their WR depth.  Packers looked good as well and Aaron Rodgers definitely bounced back from poor play last week.  Running game of the Packers is still a little scary, but hopefully Ryan Grant will help that in the regular season.

Saturday 8/24:
Went golfing Saturday morning.  Got rained out midway through, which bummed me out because when the thunder was first heard I was starting to hit some really good shots.  I also came decently close to a hole-in-one (I know, close doesn’t count for anything).

Went down to Chicago Saturday night and met up with best bud and his woman.  Ate at this place called Earwax which had good vegitarian food and neat little atmosphere.  Almost died afterward at this chocolate/ice cream shop… got some sort of orange dreamsicle float that was really large and had two huge ice cream scoops kind of hanging onto the brim of the glass.  Shouldn’t have finished it, but it was good.

Sunday 8/24:
Another Brewer game.  Finally saw CC in person, although he did not pitch a great game.  Ended up being a pretty good game, went into extra innings (we’ve seen 3 extra innings games this year, 2 of them wins).  On JJ Hardy bobblehead day, Hardy had the game winning single.  Nice how that works out.

Had my other fantasy football draft tonight.  Actually attended this one, although barely made it due to the length of the baseball game.  Another 8 team league, snaking draft order.  I had Yahoo auto pick the draft order and I wound up with the #1 pick (which of course everyone thought was a scam being I’m the commish of the league, haha).  Here’s my team:

1. (1) LaDainian Tomlinson

2. (16) Clinton Portis

3. (17) Braylon Edwards

4. (32) Laurence Maroney

5. (33) Torry Holt

6. (48) Roy Williams

7. (49) Derek Anderson

8. (64) LenDale White

9. (65) Earnest Graham

10. (80) Donald Driver

11. (81) Vernon Davis

12. (96) David Garrard

13. (97) Dallas

14. (112) Josh Scobee

Had one problem during the draft… I was connected to the internet via cell phone and lost my connection in the middle of the draft.  I had players in my “draft queue” but once the connection dropped, the queue was erased and Yahoo auto-picked.  Happened during a back-back pick, and I got Maroney/Holt out of it.  I *never* would’ve picked Maroney.  In the draft chat, I was just commenting on how Yahoo had Maroney ranked way too high just moments before it happened.  Holt is good, but he’s old, so that scares me.  I wanted to grab Reggie Bush in one of those spots and Wes Welker in the other.  Damnit.  Maybe I can make a trade…

I think that’s all I’ve got for now.

Yeah, it was pre-season.  Yeah, it was agains the pitiful Bengals.  Yeah it was just one quarter.  However, Aaron Rodgers still looked pretty darn good.  A lot of his incompletions and his interception were the fault of dropped passes.  He looked confident and did a good job progressing through his reads.  You could definitely see the difference between Rodgers, who has studied for 3 years and Brohm, who is fresh on the scene.  Brohm (and Flynn) looked very aprehensive and unfamiliar in the offense.  They repeatedly locked in on their first receiving target and never looked elsewhere.  They rushed throws, missed targets, either stood too still or moved too much.  They basically looked like rookies.  Rodgers moved really well and looked like he saw the whole field.  It’s only 12 minutes of pre-season football, but it makes you feel better about the direction of the team.

I don’t understand Favre going to the Jets.  I don’t think this makes the Jets a contender, even in their own division.  I don’t know if NY has something sneaky up their sleeves like trading Brett back to Minny, but at the moment it seems like Manginni is just really desperate to win and he’s willing to sacrifice his QB of the future to do so.

Either way, I am pumped for two reasons.  1) Favre is gone from not only Green Bay, but the conference.  2) I get to watch the Pats cream him twice this year (and hopefully next year if he is willing to come back).

I don’t understand Favre going to the Jets.  I don’t think this makes the Jets a contender, even in their own division.  I don’t know if NY has something sneaky up their sleeves like trading Brett back to Minny, but at the moment it seems like Manginni is just really desperate to win and he’s willing to sacrifice his QB of the future to do so.

Either way, I am pumped for two reasons.  1) Favre is gone from not only Green Bay, but the conference.  2) I get to watch the Pats cream him twice this year (and hopefully next year if he is willing to come back).

More bad pitching, selfish offense that won’t just move runners over, and another Brewer loss.  This one was nicely capped off with Prince Fielder shoving Manny Parra after Parra gave up 6 runs in 2 innings.  Way to go, Crew!

So I was on my way to watch my nephew play tee ball after work today. To get into the park, I had to make a left turn into a parking lot. There was traffic backed up, blocking my turn while they sat at a red light. A car was able to move forward, allowing a car in front of me to make the same left turn. The light was still red and no other cars had moved, so I proceeded to make my left turn. As I was turning, the nose of my car probably hit the entry to the parking lot when this behemoth of a woman noticed my maneuver and stomped on the gas, only to slam on the brakes in disgust and throw her flabby arms in the air in a rage. Had she not braked, I would’ve been hit in my rear passenger door.

I made little of this, as the light was still red and I really did nothing to hold her up or anything like that.

I get in the lot, park, get out of my car. I was walking around the back side of the car when a car pulled into my path. It was the fat lady. She rolled down her window and bellowed at me something about “Are you really in such a hurry that you have to do something stupid like that?!” I replied calmly with “Do you really have nothing better to do with your time that you’re pulling in here to complain about that?” She proceeded to raise her voice even more and say “You F***ING A***OLE!!! I HOPE YOU DIE!!!” She kept yelling at me, but I had already turned my back and walked away.

Oh yeah, within 10 feet of this incident, was a playground with maybe 5-10 kids playing. Real classy.