I Survived Hurricane Milton But

Milton tore the roof off of Tropicana Field.

 

Image from CNN

The hurricane took the tarp cover but left behind the damned catwalks! NOOOOOOO.

LOOK HOW THEY MASSACRED MY BOY.

Seriously, Milton's caused a lot of damage, there's a number of horrifying deaths - most from a tornado that spawned on the Atlantic coast (Palm Beach Gardens) when the outer bands reached there - and as of Friday afternoon a lot of Hillsborough and Polk Counties are out of power.

Especially where I live. I'm doing this from my library workplace - Bartow had their grid back pretty quick this time - and part of me doesn't want to go home right now because they'll be no air conditioning or Internet access waiting for me.

Gotta go feed the kitties though.

Hopefully by tonight they'll have the power fixed. Hoping.

Four For the Fourth 2018: Third Time's The Strikeout?

Hey, it's the Fourth of July and there's nothing more American than WATCHING SOME BASEBALL!

Hell yeah, let's see how the Tampa Bay Rays are doing today playing in Miami against the Marlins!

...

Well, yeah, the Rays aren't doing so hot this year...

/cries

A Crazy Kind of Tuesday, March 22 2016 Kind Of Day

It's something the Horde picks up on, how Tuesdays as a work day can be.

It's a crazy day around here for certain.

My library has events today to cope with this week being Spring Break for the county schools. So our children's librarian invited in a local farmer who raises Angora Wabbits for their fur, and will display some woven items and let the kids pet a bunny or two.

Meanwhile, our Friends of the Library are hosting a three-day book sale for used children's books to promote our Friends group, their ongoing book sales, and the library in general. I just want to ask the seven readers of this blog to Support Your Local Libraries all the time, please and thank you.

In the rest of the world, the ongoing primary slog travels west to Arizona and Utah I believe, maybe Idaho.

There's tragic news coming out of Brussels and Belgium of a series of terror attacks. Wish this crap would just end, but there's enough bastards out there who want war and who want to hurt others and until we get rid of that hate this violence is not going to end...

There's more hopeful news about Obama's current diplomatic visit to Cuba. No major announcements yet, but usually a trip like this garners some kind of financial or political exchange of promises.

And we're rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays to win today in their game against the National Cuban squad.

So, busy day, scary day, hopeful day.

Update: Rays Win!

Trying to embed video of the game:


Busy day, scary day, hopeful day.

What's This About MY BOYS the Tampa Bay Rays Playing In Cuba

So yeah, I'm a bit of a sports nut.

So yeah, I'm from the Tampa Bay area and I root for my homeboys. GO BUCS! GO BOLTS! GO... uh, we don't have a basketball team. Oh, and GO RAYS!

So yeah, I'm a little stoked that my baseball team THE TAMPA BAY RAYS are going to travel to Cuba this week and play an exhibition game against the Cuban National team. It's the first trip since 1999 by a major league franchise to the country that produces a ton of pro-caliber baseball talent and yet due to our political divisions we have no official contact with them.

But this trip is a little different. This time the Rays are playing to a Cuban crowd at a time our American-set sanctions are lifting one by one to free up travel and communication between the U.S. and Cuba. The relationship between our two nations have been at their best ever since 1960.

And this is a huge game because President Barack Obama - the President whose foreign policy efforts toward diplomacy allowed this thaw to occur, the President who has bucked forty-plus years of hardline policy that never resolved matters - will be in attendance. Obama is traveling to Cuba this week as part of an attempt to further open relations, make more arrangements and deals to bring to an end more than five decades of Cold-War hostility between two nations separated by 90 miles of Caribbean waters.

What will it be like for the Rays to be there during a potentially historic week? A week where Obama could finalize deals with Cuba to establish open elections, end the arrests of political dissidents, normalize business ties and resolve reparations of lost properties from the 1950s? Where Obama could bring back to DC a major peace treaty that even the most hardline obstructionist Republican Senators know they can't shut down without killing themselves?

Okay, maybe that doesn't all happen. But isn't it pretty to think so?

The game is going to be on Tuesday March 22 during the afternoon, I gotta work that day but I'm going to do what I can to listen in or view via the Intertubes.

This is an historic event.

I hope the Rays win.