SOM - and - weather.

Pretty big Amtrak crash in NJ.  Did not break as it entered the station. LOTS injured.  Pretty horrific.

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Yea - I changed my Yahoo email password last night and this morning I have 30 emails that bounced . . .except I never sent any emails!

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It's been a busy week.  I know I know, NORMALLY my most exciting thing to do in a day is going to get the mail.  Every retired person knows this joy.  But really, define retirement.  Retirement is when your life gets busy it seems.  60 years of putting things off and all that.

I have to get DJ busy on typing more of moms writings.  We are maybe half(??) done with the normal writings but then we found a good number of journals.

Weather - THE WEATHER SUCKS AND WILL CONTINUE TO SUCK FOR A LONG TIME.

We have a cut off LOW that is stuck.  Most of this month Wisconsin was under a jet stream and every time a LOW pressure ventured from Canada it would hit the jet, create more rain and wash that rain over Wisconsin.  HOWEVER, a LOW pushed up from the south and the jet now has this big wave in it and the LOW just stopped.  Wobbling back and forth like a top, nothing to push it away in any direction. So there it sits for another 5 days at least.  Wobble west we get days like yesterday, wobble east and we get days like today.  High of 68 and 20mph winds.

This will be the best day in the next 5 days, enjoy it. And when you venture outside at noon, YUP, that is the good part.

I'll use the term I LOATH when I'm told this.

ENJOY!!!

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Fantastic news from the USS Indianapolis foundation.  The number of Survivors has actually increased by one up to 23 now.  YEA - a survivor has been found, A.C. (Tony) King who has not spoken of the ordeal and gave permission to announce to the world that he is a USS Indianapolis Survivor.  The only thing "we" know at the moment is that he has had an interesting life.

Shipmates are elated to find he is still with us.

That is him in the middle after the rescue.  There is not a lot we have been told about his ordeal but he was well liked.



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Bad news - expect gas prices to go up as OPEC has decided to finally ease production of oil. Should not be TOO bad since America is not as dependent on oil from other nations as it used to be.

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Don't expect any meaningful polls until at least tomorrow. Most polls use a 7 day average and while there have been two polls that have come out showing a Clinton jump it's just too early.  I thought it was freakishly entertaining and might watch the debate again.  Yes yes, Trump told 52 lies compared to 4 by Clinton . . .and people say they just can't trust Clinton ?????

ALTHOUGH Trump did tell FOX news yesterday morning that the CBS poll had him winning the debate . . .except CBS did not have a poll.    

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The next few days I'll be starting to fill up The Workshop on James Street with images.  For example

I'll have 8x12 matted prints and the long long wall and the back wall filled with different sizes of prints.

I'll have 16 to 20 more wall images . . I think.  Everything was socked away in the basement for the winter.  This will be like moving across the parking lot.

DJ and I once moved to a new apartment that was across a parking lot.  It SEEMES like a good thing but DON'T DO IT.  We had a month. It was too close to rent a truck so we lived in 2 apartments for a month slowly moving things by hand.

Well, I don't want to get the trailer out so I'll load of up old car 5 or 6 times   LOL

Speaking of moving my daughter-in-law is moving out of Columbus to Elba. We will have to make a road trip all the way to Elba for visits now. I think the average age of residents in Elba will drop significantly.  

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Pretty good article about Major League Baseballs Home Run surge.  The BIG HR hitters are hitting a few more but all other classes, the lower home run hitters are hitting a LOT more home runs. It's not the baseballs because then everybody would be hitting more.   But this year and the last half of last year the lessor home run hitters with less power are hitting a lot more.

One theory is a population change in MLB.  Just more young hitters.  We all know that baseball has had a HUGE increase of young and very very good talent.  There are going to be a lot of Hall of Fame players coming from this era of talent.

One study is former Brewer Jean Segura who became the 104th player this year to hit 20 HRs which breaks a MLB record. Last year he hit .336 and had a slugging of a poor poor .326.  And this year he hits 20 HRs and has a .496 slugging pct.  WTF!!

On a weird note I have my expansion draft Wednesday and the ball park I picked for my home park is Oakland a anti-HR Park. (many parks were already in use).          

The biggest theory is that players are just swinging for the fences more and it's working.  All I know is that when I picked Oakland (I can't change for 3 years) I figured since my pitching will suck I needed a park for my first 3 years that will keep scores down and give me a chance to win maybe 70 games.

Speaking of my new team.  This league makes it as close to possible to dealing with MLB financials. Restricted and unrestricted free agents, option years, Rule 5, minor leagues players yada yada. They did not miss anything when it comes to contracts, even insurance on players if you want to take it out.  
I had to do a crash course in MLB financials and finally understand "option years".  Not that I really cared before.  Here is a flow chart for salaries.

ANYWAY - no one cares about Strat-o-Matic baseball.  All I know is that before next spring I have 4 drafts of different kinds of players.  I picked Milwaukee as my farm system (they were available) which has one of the better farm systems in MLB at the moment.  I'm stuck with them . . FOREVER. so   GULP!!    HEY - what better system for an expansion team to have then a farm system for a MLB team rebuilding.