F is For Frank Thomas (Person)

Last year, my son and I drove to New York to see Frank Thomas be inducted into the baseball hall of fame. It was an awesome experience. I am delighted to share today the video of his acceptance speech. Frank played baseball the right way and his speech really showed his tremendous love for the game and appreciation of his teammates.




I am also posting about Frank at Crazy Uncle Dave's Sport-O-Rama today. Frank hit 441 home runs with the White Sox which puts him first on the White Sox list for all time home runs. Click here to see that post. For more A to Z blogging click here. On a more somber note, on 4/7/12 I blogged about grief as it was the 3 year anniversary of my brother's death.  That time has now doubled and my post from 3 years ago can be found here.

E is for Eddie

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

E is for Eddie

William Edward "Eddie" Robinson

I will be the first to tell you, I don't know a lot about Eddie Robinson.  He played 1B for the White Sox from 1950 to 1952.  He Had a cup of coffee with the Indians in 1942 playing in 8 games and 8 getting at bats.  He came back to Indians in 1946 and played in the Majors through 1957.

As of this writing, Robinson is still alive. He is the 21st oldest living major leaguer.  He is  currently 94 years old and his 1315 games is the most played of any of the 25 oldest former players.

Robinson hit 71 of his 172 MLB home runs for the White Sox.  That is the most for any team he played on.  The 71 dingers is enough for 38th on the all time list for the Sox.  Robinson averaged 24 home runs for every 162 major league games he played.   His last 2 seasons on the South Side were his most productive home run years hitting 29 in '51 and 22 in '52.

  For more A to Z blogging click here.  For more Six Word Saturday click here.

E is For Elgin (Place)

Today I want to tell you quickly how my associations with the city of Elgin , Illinois have changed in the almost 40 years I have been travelling there.

It started when I needed braces when I was kid.  My orthodontist was in a town some 30 minutes away from where I lived called Elgin.  I didn't have any relatives in that town and to the best of my knowledge I had never visited it.  My orthodontist was in the tower building which is now on the national registry of historic buildings.

Tower Building, Elgin, Illinois.

After my adventures in orthodontia were over, I visited Elgin all of 3 times from the early eighties to 1997.  These were for 1) a lunch date with a Judson student, 2) A wedding (The reception was in the Laird Funeral Home of all places), and a camp reunion.

Then in 1997, I moved from South Carolina back to Illinois to court Amy.  I got a temp to perm job in Elgin and was there from July to October.  Shortly after that I got a job at a mortgage company and was there for almost 10 years.  While I was there I was given a 6 week assignment at one of our other facilities in Elgin.

In 2001,  We move to our current house which is between 10 and 15 minutes from Elgin.  We began to do more regular things there.  We visited churches, we visited their  library, our pediatrician's office was there.  But it wasn't until the past 5 or 6 years that we have become Elginated.  These days, I work in Elgin, our home school co-op meets in Elgin, we go to church in Elgin.  Last week I was at Elgin every day for work and then drove back there after dinner for the Imago film fest at Judson.  I spend more waking hours a week in Elgin than I do in my home town.  In a few weeks I will begin to spend more time on the bike paths and many of those are in Elgin.  

One thing we have not done is frequent restaurants in Elgin especially in the down town as they mostly open during business hours.  Elgin has a blue box cafe which has a Dr. Who motif that I want to take the kids too sometime soon.  

FOR MORE A TO Z BLOGGING CLICK HERE

To see what I blogged about alphabetically on 4-6-12 click here.

D is For Dye

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke


The A to Z Challenge is up to letter 

D is for Dye

It's also Six Word Saturday, My Six:
Jermaine "Win or Dye Trying" Dye

In the off-season between 2004 and 2005 Kenny Williams then GM of the team added different players to get the team to the next level.  Jermaine Dye who had been to the 1996 World Series with the Atlanta Braves as a rookie was a player  that Williams had added to the 2005 Sox.   The Sox Marketing campaign that year was win or die trying. 

Dye was a big reason the Sox won in 2005 and was the MVP of the World Series.  Dye  played 4 more years with the Sox and finished with 164 Home Runs for them.  He hit more home runs in 5 seasons with the Sox than he did in His 9 previous seasons elsewhere.  Dye is 7th on the all-time White Sox homer list.


Dye averaged 30 home runs for every 162 major league games he played.   His best 2 Home run totals for the Sox came in 2006  when he went yard  44 times and in 2008 with 34 round trippers.  If you dye Easter eggs tonight think of good old # 23 Jermaine Dye as you do so.  For more A to Z blogging click here.  For more Six Word Saturday click here.

D is For Dave Ramsey, Debt and Discussion

Six Word Saturday today and I am doing nouns at the A to Z Challenge as well.  Since todays letter is D I am going 3D and giving a person, a place, and a thing.  All for the price of none.

My 6 words:

Person:  Dave.  Place: Debt.  Thing: Discussions.

The Person:  Dave Ramsey

Two years ago, I was the typical husband who was tired of his wife telling him about Dave Ramsey.  But financially things were not going well, and we were on the precipice of some big changes.  So, when his financial peace university program was offered at our new church I signed us up.  

The Place: Debt

I know debt might not seem like a place to you.  But I think it's a place because for a long time we were in it.  Dave Ramsey gave us some serious tools for dissolving debt.

One:  Budget your money.  Make sure that every dollar has a name.  

Two: Use the debt snowball.  Let's say you are 15,000 in debt and owe 5,000 for a car loan, 4000 on a student loan 3,000 on a bank card 2,000 on another card and 1,000 on a store card.  Let's say after making your budget you have 750.00 to pay towards debt.  You make minimum payments on the 4 highest debts and pay the rest on the store card.  Once the store card is paid off then you start putting the additional money on the next highest card until that is paid off.  You continue to do this until all but the car loan is paid off and then put the entire 750.00 towards it.  Once the car loan is paid off you have $750.00 to start putting towards savings.

Three:  Have gazelle-like intensity in paying down your debt.  Gazelle like intensity refers to a gazelle running away from a lion.  You pay off your debt like your life depends on it.  For us, gazelle-like intensity meant stopping homeschooling 2 of  the kids for 1 year while Amy and I both worked full time.  We paid $15,000 of credit card debt in nine months.  Once we were out of debt Amy. was able to take a part-time job in her district, enabling us to begin homeschooling all 3 children again.

The Thing: Discussions

Financial discussions are very helpful.  Sometimes it is easier to hope financial matters resolve themselves, rather than discuss them.  This doesn't work very well.  Discussions are important because goals need to be made, budgets need to be revised, and ideas and feelings need to be discussed.  Amy and I had planned some events for the next few weeks, when we had a financial setback.  We discussed the matter talked about all the possibilities and decided to put off our events rather than dip into savings to pay for them.  We try to have brief discussions before every paycheck to make sure we are on the same page with the implementation of the budget.

Financial discussions are not only between Amy and myself.  Last month I brought an entire paycheck home in cash and illustrated for the kids that every dollar did indeed have a name and showed them how we planned to use that money.

For more A to Z Blogging click here.  For more six words on your Saturday click here.

4-4-2014 A2Z:D is for  Dozen year old Donuts 

C is For Carlton

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

C is for Carlton

Carlton "Pudge" Fisk

Today at my other blog, Home School Dad, I wrote about Old Comiskey Park, the home of the Chicago Whites Sox from 1910 to 1990. Carlton Fisk called Old Comiskey home from 1981 until the historic ballpark bit the dust and by the time it did, Pudge had become the White Sox all-time home run leader.

All told, Fisk hit 214 home runs for the White Sox from 1981 to his ignominious dismissal in the middle of  the 1993 campaign.  Note: I spent the year of 1993 abroad and it has been well documented (in my mind) that the White Sox would have never pulled shenanigan level antics like that, had I remained stateside.  Fisk hit more than 55 % of his 376  Major league home runs with the White Sox.  The rest came from the team where he hit this famous postseason home run.  If you haven't seen it before you've never watched Good Will Hunting.






Fisk is now 4th  most on the list of White Sox Home Runs. Fisks best 2 years for the White Sox, Homerun wise, were in 1985 when he hit 37, and in 1983 Fisks 26 homers helped win ugly.  Wearing both colors of SOX, Fisk averaged 24 home runs for every 162 games he  played.  Carlton Fisk was inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame in 2000.

For more A to Z blogging click here.  

C is for Comiskey Park (Place)

Today, I take a look at a place that is near and dear to my heart.  Especially, this time of year.  Comiskey Park was the home for the Chicago White Sox from 1910 to 1990. m It was replaced by a second stadium also called Comiskey Park in 1991.  Sometime they are referred to as Comiskey Park I and II or Old Comiskey Park and New Comiskey Park.  When New Comiskey was renamed U.S. Cellular Field in 2003, I gradually took to calling the new park by it's new moniker and the old park as Comiskey.

Here is a video baseball played in Comiskey in 1977 when the Sox were enjoying their South Side Hitmen success.  

It was somewhere around 1977 that Comiskey became the oldest baseball stadium still in use.  It held that distinction until 1990.

I started going to White Sox ga mes in the early 70's.  The year before my older sister had won two tickets at School and my Dad took her.  We were (and they still are) a Cubs family.  So I believe this was my Dad's first trip there.  I remember hearing all about the game  when I got home and I decided the next year, I would get perfect attendance and spend a day with my Dad.  We were a family of 4  kids at the time and 5 was not long after that, so 1 on 1 time with my Dad was at a premium.

The next year I had perfect attendance and I went to my first game.  Dick Allen,  hit a homerun and I fell in love with the team.  Ie still liked the Cubs and enjoyed our annual trips to Wrigleyield as a family.  But I cherished my trips to Comiskey.  My Dad took me most every year to a White Sox game,  I remembere being dedlighted to be able to watch former Cub heroes of mine Ron Santo and later Don Kessinger after they were moved to the Sox.

I could talk Comiskey all  day, but I was informed to keep these A to Z posts short.  So, I will just give you a quick guided tour.

Game 1 1959 World Series at Comiskey Park

The exploding scoreboard that shot off fireworks after every Sox Homer

The Exterior of the stadium

I think I sat behind one of these at nearly every game I went to.
We got a lot of give-a-way seats and these were what they gave away

Carlton Fisk switched Sox (from Red to White) in 1980 and was still with Chicago in 1990

Fisk is featured today at my sports blog

In 1990, The White Sox ad copy for the final season of Comiskey was years from now, you'll say that you were there.  Well that was 25 years ago and the advertising was right, I do say I was there.  I was living 4 and a half hours from Chicago at the time. Some friends came to my folks house for the weekend in July.  One of my friends had never seen a skyscraper before,  and we all watched a fantastic White Sod  victory.  What a great way to spend my last game there. 

Final Game at Comiskey

Out with the old.  In with the blue.

They Tore Down Paradise

Left Home Plate in the Parking Lot

Prior to demolition of the stadium,
the seats were removed and sold to television stars



For More A to Z Blogging click here. Back in A To Z 2012 I posted about Car Trips.

B is for Bill

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

B is for Bill

"Beltin'" Bill Melton

For many years of my life my dream job has been being the starting third baseman for the Chicago White Sox.  Bill Melton, played that position so marvelously for the White Sox when I was a kid, that I wanted to follow in his footsteps.  

Melton hit 154 home runs for the White Sox from 1968 to 1975.  That is 96.25% of his 160 career home runs.  The 154 dingers  puts him 8th overall on the WhiteSox HR leaderboard. Melton was first on that list until 1987, when surpassed by Harold Baines.      Through his career, Melton has averaged 23 home runs for every 162 games played.   Melton's 2 best home run years were in 1970 and 1971 where he hit 33 each year.  This was about the same time that his performance was making Third Base for the White Sox my dream job.

For more A to Z blogging click here.  

B is for Bibimbap (Thing)

Day 2 of nouns.  Did a person yesterday.  Today a thing is on the docket.   Tomorrow, we will do a place, but after that it will be up for grabs. We might go place, place, thing, person, place, person.  Who knows?  All I know is that there will be nouns and there will be plenty of them.

Today's thing is bimimbap.  Which up until a few minutes ago, I had never typed, or printed, or wrote in cursive.  I had eaten it.  Boy, had I eaten it.  Bibimbap is a Korean dish and looks like this ...

I first fell in love with bibimbap at first sight as it is a multisensory treat.  The texture, the taste and the look all meld together.  I used to frequent this Chinese/Korean restaurant in Evanston, Illinois back in the 1980's.  The owners were Korean so I always ordered the Korean fare rather than the Chinese.  In all the times I went there, I think I only got the Bibimbap, it was so wonderful there was never a reason for me to branch out.  I have to tell you, I'm the guy who loves to get new things on the menu.  I once had fried pork brains while waiting for a train at a Memphis dive.  I ordered them because they were the most unique thing on the menu.  So when Mr. Pork Brains has a go-to dish that is high praise indeed.  I realize that I have major league digressed as well as not yet told you what Bibimbap is.  So, click here to see what Food Republic says about it.

About 10 years after I first ate this Korean wonder food, I found myself serving as a missionary in Russia with several Korean Amercian Missionaries.  Once they found out that I loved bibimbap, they would make it for me every time I was over.  This of course was awesome.  Now in the past 20 years I have not eaten a lot of the aforementioned dish.  But when I think back about it, I celebrate the memory of every morsel.  If I have made you interested in this fantastic dish, check out this recipe from  Bon Appetit.

For more A to Z blogging click here.  Be sure to check out my Boring A to Z  post from 4-2-12 

A is for AJ

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

A is for A.J.

AJ "The Ajitator" Pierzynski being punched by Cubs backstop Micheal Barret in 2006

A.J Pierzysnki is an easy guy to hate.  Unless of course he plays for your team as he did from 2005 to 2012 for the White Sox.  All his attributes that I hated when he played for the Twins (his ability to get the best out of his pitchers and his ability to make the most of every opportunity ,offensively and defensively,  to give his team a chance to win) I fell in love with when he played for the White Sox .  These attributes are most remembered to the outside world when he got safely to fist base in a 2005 ALCS against the Angels by  running on a third strike that had not been called the third out of the inning.  The pinch runner for Pierzynski later scored the winning run of the game.

A.J. hit 118 of his so far 177 MLB home runs with the White Sox.  This puts him 16th on the ChiSox all time home run list.  Through his career so far, Pierzynski has averaged 15 home runs for every 162 games played.   His first and last years with the CHI SOX were his most prolific home run totals, hitting 18 in 2005 and 27 in 2012.  Pierzynski ended last season with the St. Louis Cardinals and is signed with the Atlanta Braves through the end of 2015.  

For more A to Z blogging click here.  

A is for Allen Levi (Person)

Today is the end of Blogging from A to Z 2015 26 posts in 30 days. Wow! I have had so much fun.

APRIL FOOLS!

Today is actually the first day of Blogging A to Z. My theme this year is nouns. So evaryday in April excluding Sundays you will get a blog about a person place or thing.

Today we start with a hero of mine, Allen Levi. I first met Allen in 1995 at a concert at my church in South Carolina. I have only seen him 4 times in the past 21 years. Each time at one of his concerts. The last time he and I met us was in 2004 at my surprise 4oth birthday party. He provided the music. Allen was an attorney and left his practice to become a full-time musician. Here is footage of him in his former habitat a concert.



I say former natural habitat because he recently did another career change and became a judge. Here is a video explaining the job change.





For More A to Z Blogging click here.

I participated in A to Z blogging back in 2012. To see what I wrote April 1st 2012 click here.

One Thing You Can do for the kid who sabotages family time - Post of the week #2

On 2/23 I shared the inaugural post of the week.  The idea for post of the week was for each Monday to share a post from my blogroll ,that I had read over the past  week and found interesting, inspiring, or some other positive adjective that begins with the letter I.

well 3-2 was the next Monday and I looked for a post of the week and got distracted and never put one up,  3-9, 3-16 and 3-23 came and went and I didn't even think about a post of the week. Now, here we are 5 weeks removed form the innaugural post and I am finally getting around to sharing a post of the week.  This comes from one of the best blogs in the free world (There are hundreds of better blogs in North Korea), We Are That Family.  The post The One Thing You Can Do for The Kid Who Sabotages Family Time. is a great idea, I am not sure if it will work for our sabotagical (I just made up that word if you did not realize it)  kid.  But it is the best idea yet that does not include shipping said kid to Siberia.

I hope to return next week with Post of  the week #3. If I don't I am going to seriously consider a name change to post of the month.

Nouns 2015 Blogging A to Z

It was 2012 that I participated in my first Blogging A to Z challenge. Here I am 3 years later to participate again. tha

My theme this year. Is A noun is a person, place or thing. First let's get that song out of our system ...





So, everyday in April except for Sundays I will be blogging about either a person place or thing that corresponds with the letter of the day. To find out more about Blogging A to Z click here.

White Sox Home Run Hitters from A.J. to Zeke

This year I am participating in the a to z challenge ...

The ideas of the challenge is to write 26 times overt he course of the month and have each post start with a different letter of the alphabet proceeding in alphabetical order. Resting Sundays allows each participant to hit each letter in the month of April. I participated in this at Home School Dad years ago. When I did I thought of this theme for blogging here. With each letter, I will write about a home run leader for the White Sox whose first name or last name starts with that letter. The sox as far as I know have never had a player whose first or last name started with X so on that day I will find some way, to blog about my first White Sox Home Run hero Dick Allen perhaps talking about his x-factor. So on Wednesday we will feature A.J. Pierzynski and finish on 4-31 with Zeke Bonura. Home Run totals are through the last game of 2014. Click here to find out more about the A to Z challenge.

Zuckermans Famous Pig (from "Charlotte's Web") - One Man Barbershop Mult...

I was recently lamenting about how people don't watch movies together any more.  I will write more about this later.  So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the advent of the 1 man barber shop quartet.

IMago Film Festival 2015 drawing to a close

Last year I watched the movie Ragamuffin.  It was awesome.  It was definitely worth all the hype.  I must admit the best thing personally that came out of my ragamuffin experience was my discovery of the Imago Film Festival.  I went to see Ragamuffin at a showing at Judson College and while I was there I first heard of Imago, a film festival run by Judson, now in its eleventh year.  I went to several
nights last year including the awards ceremony.  I loved it so much that I bought a seasons pass this year and have been to each and every event over the past 5 nights.  After I finish this post I am off to the awards ceremony for year 11.  Over the next few weeks, I will give you a night by night rundown of the event for right now let's talk about what Imago is.  I took this from the imago website ...

OUR MISSION

The Imago Film Festival showcases independent film that deals with faith issues, emphasizing image and story.

The festival films capture the full spectrum of human emotion, experience, and spirituality.

The festival shows all the movies entered in the competition and gives out 4 awards: 1 for best film in show, 2 first places one for the best 16-30 minute film and one for the best under 16 minute film, and then the audience choice.  There is  a total of $2000.00 in prizes for the filmmakers up for grabs.

Besides screenings the 18 films in competition, there are interviews with filmmakers, actors, and even a lifetime achievement award.  Last year the winner of the first ever mago lifetime achievement award was Martin Sheen.  I am looking forward to finding out who nabs it tonight.

I have totally loved my experience at the past 2 festivals.  Judson is practically in my back yard and there are few places I enjoy more that a college campus or a film festival.  Sure it seems like I am the only community member not affiliated with an individual film most nights.  Sure I used to have more people at my house when I was in high school to watch videos than the amount of people in the theatre  on a given night, and none of my friends were getting chapel credit. But as I tell my kids when they won't try food that I love, more for me.  Gotta jet, my inner Siskel beckons.

WSCR: Sometime's not listening is best way to speak up

I am a big time fan of sports radio.  I have been listening to WSCR  (The Score) since they went on the air back in 1992. besides the years I lived in Russia from December of 1992 to December of 1994 and South Carolina from 1995 to 1997   I have been a regular listener to sports radio in Chicago,  primarily WSCR as they did the WKRP theme thing and moved up and down the dial until finally landing on 670 where WMAQ had promised to make me rich when I was a kid.

As a Christian,  I try to watch what words I listen to and what things I say.  To that end, I could never get behind show titles like S&M in the morning (The  initials referring to show hosts Tom Shaer and Jim Memelo) nor could I participate in the signature segment on the show based on an Old Mike Ditka rant.  The segment has nothing to do with the c-list swear word for producing feces but has everything to do with tagging someone out when you find them off base.  Still,  I could never bring myself to call up and say a word on the radio that I wouldn't say in public.

My point in all this is to say that there were some goings on at WSCR that I didn't want to listen to and when they came on like the commercials for strip clubs, I just turned them off, sometimes for days and weeks at a time.  I did this because sometimes not listening is the beset way to speak up.

Over the years some of the hosts I really liked and some I did not much care for.  I liked all the Dan's (McNeil, Jiggets and later Bernstein) I was 50/50 on the Mikes, Loved Murphy, didn't care much for North.

I didn't care much for North's shtick.  The whole who needs High school, self made man thing never' really resonated me.  But it wasn't until September 12, 2001 that he really got under my skin.  As you may recall, September 11th 2001, was kind of a big deal,  and even the day after,  sports radio was not talking about sports.  When I got into my car after work that day, Secretary of State Colin Powell was making a speech about U.S. response to the tragedy.  Half way through the speech, North turns off the feed and starts discounting what Powell was saying and giving his own "insight" to what had to be done.  Now this was nearly 14 years ago, so I don't remember the particulars, but that was the last time I listened to Mike North.  I just had it with him.  Had it with how on one hand, he could brag about being a high school drop out and then on the other,  have enough hubris in the wake of a national tragedy, to  purport that he knew more about global politics than a decorated general and current secretary of state.

At the time, North was the face of the score, he was on 1/2 the commercials,  even when not in his time slot.  Anytime since 9-12-01 that his voice came on the score, I switched the channel. Now was I being petty or vindictive?  I don't think so.  This is the first time in nearly 14 years I am going public with it.  I only do so to illustrate a need to turn a score personality off again.

I mentioned earlier that I liked Dan Bernstein.  He is the host of the afternoon show at WSCR.  He and his partner Terry Boers also run the segment, I referred to earlier.  I remember when Bernstein was first starting at the score  covering things like the NBA draft.  Over the last 15 years Bernstein, has become as Lawrence Holmes said recently, the face of the score.  I have found Bernstein to be very insightful and analytical over his run at WSCR.  I have also found him at times boorish, sophomoric and ill tempered.  There are days that he shows a real disdain for the opinions and thoughts for the callers on his show.  Still in all, he hadn't done anything to make me pull the plug on him.  That is until this week.

In  1992  and even in 2001 Social media was essentially non existent.  So disdain for an on air personality came usually from what they said or from a column they would put in a newspaper or website.  Twitter , Facebook and the like have changed that in a big way.

Bernstein tweeted this week in a very unprofessional manner about a female journalist.  After publicly and correctly standing up for women this week who have been abused by men, Bernstein objectified women by using a crass word, to describe part if the female journalists anatomy.  So it's channel switching time for me again at WSCR.  Stopping listening to North was a personality thing.  I couldn't stand his personality.  For Bernstein it's simply a matter of not wanting to listen to someone who defends women and objectifies them within the course of a week. 

I will still listen to the White Sox and to Lawrence Holmes. as he is a class act and in my opinion should be the face of WSCR. But when Bernstein comes on the air to sell wine, or promote the tournament of bad, or just to do his show, I will have switched channels, because sometime not listening is the best way to speak up.