Random thoughts

Maybe it was Sept. 11, and the anthrax scares now, or maybe
an early mid-life crisis. I'm a budding skeptic. My mind bounces
from anthrax to playoff baseball to work and around and around.
It's difficult to think much further into the future. I think I'm in
danger of losing my long-term imagination.
When Bill house hunts, or Joannie prepares for marriage, or
Michelle seeks a job in Seattle, or Howie starts business
school, I can barely think out as far as Thanksgiving.
Went to the Mariners game today. I'm resigned to the idea that
the Yankees will win it all again, and it depresses me. Please,
someone beat the Yankees. Is there anything more dull than
seeing the highest paid team in baseball win year after year?
The series doesn't line up well for the M's. Today they had a
struggling Sele against a rested Pettite. Tomorrow they have
Garcia on 3 days rest against Mussina, probably the best Yankee
starter right now (and statistically, he might have had a better
year than Clemens if you disregard W-L record). They get
the edge with Moyer in Game 3, but just barely. Williams
seems to hit Moyer very well. I think the key to the series
is giving Pineiro a start against Clemens in Game Four. Pass
up Sele.
New project at work, and it is very challenging and time-consuming.
I think I'm ready for an uptick in intensity again, though these days
with the early darkness outside and empty offices earlier than
normal, late nights at my desk are a bit, mmm, secluded.
Installed Office XP at work b/c I needed the new pivot table
interface for accessing some data cubes. So far, I don't detect
very many striking improvements. Thankfully, my custom macros
and buttons in Excel were not lost. Outlook seems to run slower
and strange bugs pop up to nag me from time to time.
I might be out in NYC on business sometime in the next two weeks.
It would be fun to see James, and Karen might head out as well.
You know, it really is very easy to download movies off the
Internet. I've never really had the urge, as watching movies on a picture
the size of a playing card on a PC with the sound coming from a
pair of PC computers holds no appeal for me. But for kicks I decided
to try it out today and managed to find all sorts of current movies
out there.
There was an interesting article in the NYTimes Magazine recently,
an issue examining love in the 21st century. The article questioned
the modern conception of love and whether or not it truly is a thing
to be desired in its most popular forms (marriage, monogamy, etc.).
If more than one in two marriages ends in divorce, might it not be an
institution in need of some adjustment? Maybe that's the accepted
calculus of marriage, that if you hit .500 you're a success. In baseball
you strike out once it's okay if you get a hit the next time out. If
your first marriage ends in divorce and you remarry, happily, you're
a one-time divorcee. Maybe the problem lies in the romantic notion
that you must find sexual attraction and lifelong companionship from
the same person (when we know that the former has a finite life).
I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say. For a man with a somewhat
skeptical bent, I found the article intriguing.
Today is the first time since last winter that I can recall seeing
temperatures fall under 50 degrees. I read 43 degrees on my way
to work this morning. Car windows frost up, and I'm reminded so
strongly of rushing out on a fall day in Naperville, preparing to
play football on a large, empty field dusted with gold and orange
leaves.
In other words, not Britney Spears singing Hit Me Baby One More
Time but more like Travis covering Hit Me Baby One More Time.
Mellow, ironic, somewhat desperate, possibly drug-influenced.