Reminder: I really don't know what I'm doing

I inadvertently wrecked the blog this afternoon -- I'm not really sure how. For a few minutes, all I could see were lines of HTML code straight out of the Matrix.

I pressed forward in complete ignorance and was able to recover everything except our old tie dye background. Fortunately, tie dye is never in short supply here in Eugene. As you can (hopefully) see, I was able to find some more.

Please let me know if something appears wonky on your side.

______
Update: The old tie dye is back!

Travis the (very) casual baseball fan

September 17, 2007.

That was the last time I watched a complete major league baseball game. The Phillies beat the Cardinals 13-11. The Cards fell way behind early; they didn't even score a run until the 6th inning. If I had been at home, I would have changed the channel. But I was actually watching the game in Busch Stadium, Section 235, Row 3, Seat 20. The Cards made it exciting in the end, nearly becoming the first team in history to come back from an 11-run deficit.

Discounting my evening in St. Louis, I have had only inadvertent contact with the sport (i.e. I tune to Fox expecting to find the Simpsons, only to find a baseball game?! Doh!). But my apathy has apparently cost me the opportunity to witness a wonderful story.

The Tampa Bay Devil Ra..., er, I mean the RAYS, are one win away from going to the World Series for the first time in franchise history. You may think, "They got rid of the Devil -- of course things are going better for them." But their success is attributable to more than simply cutting ties to Satan. Based on my casual half-listening to sports talk radio, the Rays have been joined by Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria, and she has been hitting homeruns like crazy. Here's the story (Though they obviously messed up the photo -- that's definitely not Eva).

Good for her, I say.

We are not crooks!

Yesterday morning we ventured up to Thistledown Farm just north of Eugene for some family photos by April.




We borrowed a couple of the Farm's pumpkins as props, and then returned them when we were done. As we loaded the kids into the truck and prepared to return home, an employee aporoached and asked us if we had paid for our pumpkins. We told her we didn't have any pumpkins. She was skeptical, "My boss said that she saw you loading some pumpkins into a cart." We assured her that while we had used a couple in some photos taken on the premises, we had returned them when we were done. The employee's lingering suspicion was clearly apparent in her expression. Melis' even offered to let her search our truck. The employee declined, and walked away. I believe she still thought we were pilfering pumpkins.


Melis' and I were really stung that somebody would even suspect us of thieving pumpkins.

(For the record, the four pumpkins on our front porch were all lawfully purchased from Thistledown last week.)


Anyway, I had to just get that off my chest. I feel much better.

Sometimes, even Beaver fans can be funny

A few seasons ago, some cheeky OSU football players thought it would be fun to get drunk and steal sheep (details at the link -- yes, the sheep's sexual orientation was apparently an open question among OSU scientists). Duck fans cracked wise, and even employed some arts and crafts.

Well, the Beavs have since won a couple of Civil War games and are ready to reciprocate




Nicely played Beaver Nation.