Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

As you may have noticed, I have not posted anything new since the 3rd of the month. I was in Charleston, SC for a week attending a marketing conference, followed by a week's stint in Toronto at a horrendously boring convention (I did, however, enjoy some very nice meals and some fantastic wine). I was without access to a computer during that time.

Jen left for Spain on Saturday afternoon (her company has a lab in Granada and she kicks so much ass that they asked her to go scope it out for a week), so I'm home alone with the kiddies.

So, between catching up on the 400+ work emails I received while I was traveling and entertaining/feeding/clothing/keeping alive my children, I haven't had a chance to sit down and write about all the fun and exciting things happening in our world. Rest assured all you Tangled Up In Blog fans (of which there may be 2), I will be back and better than ever in the coming days!

So what's the deal with this blog?

I think (if for no other reason than to keep myself somewhat in check) it would be a good idea to briefly expound (I believe that would be what some people call an oxymoron) on what this blog is all about. I'm not sure I'd ever heard of a blog until at least a year after they became trendy, and, even then, I thought creating and maintaining one was way over my head.

Then, a couple of months ago, I accidentally stumbled upon a blog written by a buddy of mine. I was Googling a topic we had discussed involving March Madness and a certain series of fucking retarded Applebee's commercials involving a retired high school basketball coach and his thankless hag of a wife, when I happened upon his blog with which he had addressed the topic of our conversation. I started reading it on a regular basis and discovered that I, too, wanted to have an outlet that would enable me to craft my writing and express my thoughts and opinions of the world around me.

First and foremost, this blog will be top-heavy with sports, music, entertainment, and pop culture writings and references because...well...that's what I like and that's what I know. Sure, some news and politics will fill in the gaps, and stories of my work, family, and friends will probably make guest appearances every once in awhile.

A few things you should know, in particular, about my sporting interests:

If it's even remotely considered a sport (i.e. cricket, billiards, horse racing, dwarf tossing, Battle of the Network Stars, etc.), there's about a 99% chance I'll tune in and watch it.

Nothing is more thrilling, in my opinion, than the drama of sports. I'm talking about Game 7, Sunday at the Masters, the Final Four, and the Super Bowl. I'm talking about walk-off home runs, double-overtime goals, buzzer beaters, and photo finishes. I'm talking about Kirk Gibson (1988 World Series), 4th and 1 against Purdue (Ohio State, 2002), Tiger on the 16th at the 2005 Masters, and guys named Bryce Drew from Valpo. Give me any of those on any given day. I love it and I live for it.

Speaking of living, I was born in New York (Upstate...not that other part of the state that everyone always thinks of), moved to Atlanta, New York again, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Atlanta again, Virginia, Atlanta again, and finally, Ohio (I'm staying here for good...I'm fucking tired of moving), so my sports teams are all over the map. Seriously, here are my teams:

• Atlanta Braves
• New England Patriots
• Columbus Bluejackets
• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Manchester United
• Syracuse University basketball
• Ohio State University football

Over the course of this blog, I'll visit how I came to discover these teams, and how they became an integral part of my life. For the moment, I'd like to focus on the Braves, the first professional sports franchise I invested my life in (I was born into Syracuse basketball, bleeding Orange, a half mile from where the Carrier Dome stands...more on that later).

Atlanta Braves

Baseball is my first love. Period. Some of my earliest memories involve Little League, baseball cards, keeping score, trips to Cooperstown, and TBS. When I was 8 years old, living outside Syracuse, New York, I got hooked on the Braves. We had just moved from Atlanta, where I was mildly aware of the team, but Gobots, Return of the Jedi, and Michael Jackson's Thriller took up the bulk of my adolescent interests.

Most of my friends in NY were either Mets or Yankees fans, and I knew, even at that young age, that I hated both of those teams. Lucky for me, Ted Turner owned TBS and the Atlanta Braves, and they were on television every night (this was years before Fox Sports South, Turner South, and all the other satellite channels split the Braves TV schedule into a million pieces so a kid in New York could only watch a third of the games). This was THE Superstation in all its glory...when 162 games a year were televised...a decade and a half before the scheduling geniuses at the network decided that replaying Turner and Hooch 26 times in the month of July was better than a handful of series against the Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Cards, and Expos (yeah, I went down that road).

The Braves were still part of the NL West, so many of their games didn't even start until 10:00 PM EST. Luckily, I had a little UHF television set in my bedroom and I used to turn the games on when I was supposed to be sound asleep. Shhhh...don't tell my folks.

It was the era of 90 losses a year, Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Glen Hubbard, Bruce Benedict, Rafael Ramirez, Bruce Sutter, Ozzie Virgil, Zane Smith, Fulton-County Stadium, and Skip Carey in all his fat, drunken, Bob-Uecker-in-Major League glory. It was awesome. I was there through it all, and got to experience pure-adrenaline elation when the Braves beat out the Dodgers on the last day of the season in 1991 to win the NL West and total sports euphoria when they finally got that beautiful World Series trophy in 1995.

I've been there through Tommy, Mad Dog, Smoltzy, Kid Avery, the Blause, the Lemmer, Otis, Justice, Francisco Cabrera, Sid, Klesko, Wo-daddy, Schmidty, Marquis, Javy, Rocker (meh), Turner Field, Chipper, Andruw, T-Hud, Frenchy, and McCann, just to name a few. It's been fun, and it looks like it may be fun for a while longer.

God bless America's Team.

Happy Birthday, Jen!

Today is my wonderful wife's 31st birthday. My, how the years fly by!

Happy Birthday, sweetie! You deserve to pamper yourself today and be treated like the queen you are. I look forward to celebrating many, many more with you and the kids! Cheers!

Keeping Up With the Joneses

Well, Manchester United failed to make any attempt at a comeback last night in Milan, falling 3-0 to the Italian football club. Thanks for showing up Reds...here are some nice parting gifts for you. Bye, bye treble. Oh well, there's still the Premiership and the FA Cup.

On a happier note, the Braves continued their great play last night, disposing of the Phillies 4-3. Chipper Jones is leading the National League in HRs (10), with 22 RBIs and a .318 average to boot. Perhaps we're seeing the reemergence of one of the best players (and by all accounts clean) in the game and a return to his MVP form of 1999. So far, I have to say I'm impressed with the active roster the Braves front office has put together around the nucleus of John Smoltz and the Jones boys.

Let's face it, Bobby Cox has to be nearing the end of his remarkable run with Atlanta, and with guys like Smoltzy and Chipper entering their penultimate years, or, in Andruw's case, likely headed to another ball club, these guys want to win another World Series as much as Kobe wishes he had Shaq back in L.A. John Schuerholz has built a solid group of players to help achieve this. Jeff Francoeur is playing lights-out and is more patient at the plate this season (.311, 5 HRs, 25 RBIs), Brian McCann is the next coming of Mike Piazza, but without the Posh Spice attitude, Tim Hudson is pitching like he did in Oakland (3-0, 1.40 ERA), Edgar Renteria is getting on base a lot (OBP of .403) and making the defensive plays we expect of him, and Kelly Johnson is filling in admirably at second (.323, 5 HRs). Bob Wickman, of blowing-saves-by-the-bushel-in-Cleveland fame, has been shutting down opponents left and right...that is until this week when he blew two saves and ended up on the 15-day DL. All things considered, the Braves are making a serious argument for being a contender for late October baseball glory. Of course, we have 5 and a half months to see how it all shakes out. I like our chances, though.

Stay tuned...

What the hell is a BLOG and why am I writing one??

This is my first official posting, and my first stab at the world of blogging.

As I sit here in my tiny office today, I'm listening to a live broadcast of the Manchester United-AC Milan semi-final match in the UEFA Champions League (gotta love the internet!!). MU is trailing 2-0 at halftime, and it sounds as if the end is in sight.

Too bad, really, as Liverpool put Chelsea away last night to advance to the finals. A northwest final between two storied football clubs would have been something to get excited about. Of course, this game isn't over just yet. We still have 45 minutes to square this game up. A draw advances MU, after we put AC Milan down last week 3-2. Stay tuned...