Back for another “here’s all the not quite tabloid worthy stuff that’s been going on in my life” blog entry.

Over the weekend Stacie and I went camping down San Clemente way. It was technically the “San Mateo” campground, and it was frickin hot with no shade. To make the camping experience even more miserable was our newly acquired sunburns from our day at the beach. The beach and I are now mortal enemies locked in a battle until the end of the universe. Despite the crummy camping conditions, the camping company was great. We caught up with Kurtis, Amanda, Kevin, and Christie over tacos and smores. Overall it was fun, but made me long for a real camping trip in the snow.

After that our energy has been next to nothing as we recover from 87th degree burns. Yesterday we went out to Chick Fi’la, or however the heck you spell it, in Cerritos. We stopped at the Power Toyota dealer to look at some Camrys in real-life. Looking on the internet for close to 9 hours straight is quite informative, but actually touching the car helps too. Since I haven’t given a car update since the “I’m looking” post, I’ve decided on the Camry because it’s a Toyota, it’s big enough, and it gets decent mpg. I ruled out a Civic because of the size. For an extra couple grand it should be a little easier once we have kids and they’re all killing each other in the backseat. Now it will be a bigger backseat for them to kill each other in. I also ruled out the Toyota Camry hybrid. The list price on a Hybrid is $5000 more than the Camry SE I’m looking at. At my current driving habits, it would take something like 23 years to recoup the cost of the hybrid. I’ll stop Charles Dickensing you (that’s a new verb for this being super long). I’m getting quotes from several dealers around town, and it’s already proving fruitful. One dealer has quoted me $1000 less than others for the exact same car. I’m all for saving $1000.

Today brought new and exciting annoyances. The incoming water hose on the water heater decided to develop a crack and start spraying water all over. No good. Called Mike Diamond in my haste and fear. Guy came out, but the numbers he was quoting me sounded insane for what was wrong. Almost $400 to fix a flex hose that costs maybe $10? That’s retarded. I called my dad and he agreed. I managed to get the incoming water valve to turn (it was majorly stuck) but it’s a crappy gate valve that decided not to work. Turn it and turn it but the water doesn’t stop. Now the water to the entire house is off until we can install a new ball valve, which should hopefully be done tonight.

Those are the exciting happenings around the house. We’re still working on planning vacation, so I might put up a new map soon. The book is still in forward motion, though I let Stacie read the first major “act” of the story. She provided some excellent feedback that would make the story a lot better. I’ve read some people that say never go back and “edit” anything until the whole book is done, just keep pushing forward…but I couldn’t do that. I’ve gone back and I’m fixing some things before I go farther.

Brother’s bachelor party is this weekend.

Billingsley, Kemp, Martin, Loney, Ethier, you all rule! The future of the Dodgers right there.

Transformers is out today, and seeing it on the big screen will be a must.

That about sums up life for now. Hope everyone is great!

Hope everybody had a great weekend. Aside from seeing the Dodgers get swept, our weekend was pretty good. Just a couple words on the Dodgers to tide me over until the winter. The Mets are clearly a better team. From the bats in their lineup to the arms in their bullpen, they had us beat. The Dodgers should not resign Nomar next year, because James Loney is ready. The money saved from signing Nomar needs to be applied to a true home run bat either at third or the outfield. Drew is not a true homerun threat, and we really need someone that can hit 40 homeruns, not 20.

Most of my weekend was spent researching media players, which are little electronic devices you connect to your tv and they can playback media files like videos and mp3s. Unfortunately there are not very many options available, and of the ones there are, they all have problems. On Sunday I borrowed my Dad’s old Pentium 3-500 and I have it hooked up to the tv downstairs. It’s not powerful enough to playback HD quality video, but it will give me an idea if this is the route I want to go. This is called a HTPC (Home Theatre Personal Computer). You can hook up a remote, watch downloaded video files, record HDTV, play DVDs, and even upgrade it to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray in the future.

Today we have a student free day, which means us teachers are not free. We could be, but we’ve elected to go to work and get paid instead of stay at home and not get paid. Have a great Monday.

1) Play Betemit, not Lugo.
2) If Nomar can’t play, put in Loney. Stop with the crappy shifting of Kent and playing people out of position.
3) According to Steve Lyons the strike zone shrinks in the post-season. Was he paying attention at all tonight?
4) Pitching hasn’t been too bad, but the offense is anemic.

Have to hope that a change of scenery back to Los Angeles will help. Right now the Mets look like a much better team.

The Dodgers have two series under their belts, so I thought I’d take a few moments to review what I’ve seen.

The Dodgers (3-3) have experienced some things new, and some old. Like last year, the injury bug has reared its ugly head early. Lofton, Gagne, Nomar, all down with injuries, at least temporarily. The difference this year, or so it seems thus far, is that we have the depth to make up for these injuries. Loney has stepped up at first, Danys Baez can make-up for Gagne, and Repko has done well in the outfield.

A big question mark entering the season was our bullpen, and so far it has been hit and miss. Our starters have looked much better during the Phillies series than against Atlanta. Penny is looking excellent through his first two starts. So far the offense has been there, with pretty much everyone contributing.

If our bullpen can settle down and we can stay healthy, I’m looking forward to what this team can pull off this year.

With spring training finally getting started and daily posts to dodgers.com returning, I thought I’d take some time to talk about a team who’s farm system was just ranked #1 in baseball.

The Dodgers have a lot of good prospects in their system…enough that you could put together half a team with them.

C – Russell Martin
3B – Andy LaRouche
2B – Delwyn Young
1B – James Loney
SS – Joel Guzman
OF – Andre Ethier
SP – Chad Billingsley
SP – Greg Miller
RP – Hong-Chih Kuo
RP – Johnathan Broxton

Which of these guys will turn out to be the real deal, I don’t know, but there sure is a lot to pick from. It should also be interesting to see where people finally land if they make it to the big show. Guzman and Young are both at positions that may not be free for several years and there is talk about moving them to the outfield. I think with Furcal, and hopefully a strong return by Izturis, some outfield work for these guys would be good. Especially considering Ethier is our only big prospect in the OF, unless I’m missing one.

While I’m looking forward to this year, I can’t wait to see how things shape up over the course of several years. As young guys start to make an impact, the Dodgers can turn around and spend some money on a REAL big bat (ie not JD Drew). Young players that are making less free you up to spend more on single positions. That is why the Yankees pay out the ear…they have no farm system and want a star at every position.

It’s always exciting to watch a homegrown talent come into their own. Here’s to a ROY in the next couple seasons!