Friday, March 14, 2008

There's no place like home - unless it's not your home.

I am in New York for the weekend, looking after my father who is still recuperating from surgery. I flew up on Southwest Airlines, on a completely uneventful flight, despite their recent troubles. I sat in the back as my boarding number was B-12, a fine vitamin, but a crappy number for seating on Southwest. A couple of rapid rewards drink coupons and I was good to go.

Upon arriving in New York (well actually, Islip), I got my bag and went over to the rental car counter. The delay in getting my car proved fortuitous. This is what I drove away in . . .
I arrived at my father's new place (it occurred to me that this was the first time I was returning to Long Island since last June. It should be an interesting weekend. I'm sure to have more to report at the end of the weekend. My sister arrives on Sunday afternoon to take over. It is her first time back in New York in more than two years. I have to admit - it's a little weird.

But in any case, I have a few things that I wanted to pass along to you in case you are looking for some diversions this weekend. (But of course, don't forget the Passion of the Lord on Sunday - make sure the coffee is extrey strong that morning.)
  • First of all, for those who are keeping track, the contest over at March Drunken Madness is in full swing. We have eight contestants (including yours truly) in the running. Voting will be available until Tuesday night at midnight (EDT). Go have a look and vote for your favorite.
  • I have told you people of my devotion to kottke.org. As it turns out, Jason has been posting his stream of consciousness for ten years now. If you haven't bookmarked the site, or put it into your reader, or gotten the RSS feed, do so. You'll like what you get. And, as it turns out, you can be cool like me. Evidently the British paper, the Guardian Observer posted a list of the 50 most "powerful" blogs and kottke.org is number 4. As yet, Order from Chaos is not on the list. But Waiter Rant, which was the blog that NJM turned me on to and got me started down the rabbit hole of the blogging world is on the list at number 44. How many of the ones you read are on the list?
  • Trusting my life to Southwest this weekend might lead one to question one's mortality. Mrs. Brave Astronaut and I have had several discussions about what we get to take with us into the afterlife. I am not so keen on the idea of having anything "harvested" from me after I've shrugged off this mortal coil. She usually responds with, "well, you'll be dead and I'll get to decide." But even if I don't agree to organ donation, here's an idea I can get behind. There is no reason for any of my ideas to be buried with me. Maybe that novel will finally get published.
  • The Riverdale Garden, a restaurant in the Bronx (NY) has a problem. In order to save itself, it is prevailing upon its regular customers to pony up $5000 per couple for a year's worth of dinners. They are hoping to get fifty couples, which would net them $250,000, to secure a long-term lease and do some improvements to the restaurant
  • Speaking of the Bronx, here's a few baseball-related nuggets.
    • Billy Crystal, a lifelong fan of the Yankees (he produced and directed 61*) turned 60 today. To commemorate the event, Crystal was given a tryout and a one-day contract with the Yankees. Unfortunately for him, he struck out swinging. But I'm pretty sure he didn't care.
    • This will be the last season for the House that Ruth Built. Yankee Stadium will face off against the wrecking ball at the end of this season. Before that happens there is a good chance that this could happen. I am all about whatever the NHL needs to do. How much would I want to be there for that? Then again, I really want to be here for this final event, too. But that's not going to happen, unless we win Powerball tomorrow night.
  • If you are feeling a little frisky on this Palm Sunday weekend, the folks over at Gridskipper Washington DC have done the work for all of us heathens. You may have heard (or read) the Vatican has redefined those really bad sins (see also: seven deadly sins). Given that the big guy himself (no, not that big guy, the Pope) is coming to town, Gridskipper has created a map to let everyone know where they can go in DC to commit those new sins the Vatican would like us not to commit. But then we could just head down to Nationals Park and get some absolution.
  • And finally, if you have plans to attend Nationals Park this season (as Southern Gentleman and I will do on Opening Night on March 30), click over to the Washington Nationals website and vote for your favorite songs to be played at opportune times during the game. This news first came to me from the site devoted to getting Teddy a win in the president's race. (If you're not sure what that meant, it's OK)
Well that should keep you all busy for the weekend. I have a post ready to go for Sunday, a recipe ready for Monday, and then it will be time to sit down for a minute with Number 10, also known as John Tyler.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope your dad's recovery is progressing well.

dd

Anonymous said...

Well, I am not on the Guardian's blogger top 50 list either, but I link to three of them on my blog roll and catch about 10 others in my Google reader. I don't know what exactly that means...

Amy said...

I, too, hope your dad's doing well.

But I'm also curious how you like the Mustang. Will we get a full report in the future?

Kim Ayres said...

I looked at that top blogger list and found myself feeling resentful. One of the things I love about blogging is it doesn't have to be competitive - we just do what we want to do. Suddenly along comes a list saying that these people do it better.

F*** 'em all

Brave Astronaut said...

DD - He's his normal cranky, cantankerous self. Which means he must be getting better.

ADR - Well we both read "Ramblings" , which I think is a great blog. So we are doing just fine, despite the author's propensity for "colorful" language.

Amy - I'm not normally a Ford person (you know that Ford stands for "Found On Road Dead" right?), but the rumble of the many horses and the look of the 60s muscle car was certainly nice.

Kim - I think there is something to be said for our "uniqueness" of our blogs. I would argue they were not maintaining that these blogs were necessarily better, just more potent. We both have our niche readers, of course yours being larger than mine. We must take solace in that, as you say, we are doing what we want to do. If people stop by and look over our shoulders, so be it. We're not changing. There's no point.