Off to Europe

I'm heading to Europe for a very quick trip beginning 7/30....here are two pics I took when I was there in June...the top photo overlooking the Thames River and downtown Paris from Yvana and Tom Stevens' family property in France...the photo below was taken from my hotel window in London overlooking what I thought was THE London Bridge...turned out to be 'London Tower Bridge'....cool nevertheless.

One of the perks of my job has been the ability to visit new parts of the world. Growing up, we didn't do much traveling as a family beyond the occasional trip to Florida or Michigan. Touring around the midwest and East coast back in the day to follow my favorite music was really my first introduction to 'traveling' (95 Phish tour the best tour I did). Traveling abroad is only something I started doing 3 years ago. Although touring Europe and hopefully someday Asia, 'exciting' life on the road can quickly turn into 'loneliness' and 18 hour work days.

Is traveling for work a perk? Or, is it something that turns into a burden when it comes to home and family? To think of being away from my family for more than 1, sometimes 2 weeks - in another country - on the other side of the planet - 8 or 9 hours ahead - away from my kids - away from my bed - away from my wife.......or to be in my wife's shoes - have her husband more than 5500 miles away - being alone at home with four kids - to wake up at 6 a.m. and immediately start thinking about when it is nap time - to be communicating/socializing with no one over four years old the majority of the day.....I am not sure traveling for work is a perk. But, it is the sacrifice that many of us make to hopefully better life in the future.

Life's a Beach

Between the 60 hour work weeks and days on the road, I've been making a concerted effort to get the boys to the beach at least once a week.

When I grew up in Sylvania, time on the water was limited between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Although the lake provides many more options to get in or on the water, the beach is fun 11 months a year out here in Cali. I want my boys to get as much as the beach as possible during our time out here (who knows how long that will last).

Now, if I could just get the little lady of my life to enjoy it as much as the boys and I do, perhaps I could get some boogie board work in.

Tribe Extend Choke Jobs for All Fans

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2938292

Great news out of Cleveland today.....they have extended the contract of Eric Wedge. The Indians, if you recall, were picked by many experts last year to run away with the AL Central, only to be completely dominated and runover by the Tigers.

And now that the Tribe have set themselves up yet again for their annual 2nd half collapse, the Tribe has gone out and rewarded the manager.

I predict Tribe loser fan (Scherers of the world) will be begging Mike Hargrove to come out of retirement at the end of this year.

Me & Fantasy Sports

I am a fantasy junkie. My friends enjoy spending countless hours hazing my fantasy capabilities. I have only won twice, ever. That is twice ever in an annual football and baseball league. I did win a couple of hoops titles, but those don't count.

The key to fantasy sports is draft day. If you don't draft well, it makes for a very long, stressful, time wasting season. You can never recover from a poor draft.

The Bleacherheads season has been another disappointment. I actually thought I drafted well, until the day after. Now, it has been a constant season of playing from behind.

This blog is an attempt to move away from wasting hours on fantasy sports; and instead, waste hours writing random thoughts in this Web journal. Joy.

Proof That Pigs Can Fly

The giant pigs at the Roger Waters show in Irvine on my birthday....reminded me, subtly, of the mid-90s Pink Floyd show at the Horesehoe in Columbus, OH.....the pigs were a big part of the shows' first set closer back in Columbus - permanently etched in my memory.

Notice the political messages written on the pig.....there were plenty anti-Bush remarks painted on the pig.

Not too bad of a show, though our seats sucked. Joins other birthday shows that include Phish 95 (2nd set only thanks to Hylant) in Atlanta w/ Wedge, Antelope->Fluff 1st set closer that we missed, The Grateful Dead at Freedom Hall, and Althea w/ Hunter, two Widespread Panic shows (one at the Wiltern), as well as a few ekoostik Hookah shows.

Miss You Grandpa

The last 9 months for my family have been time of reflection. Of course we were blessed with Crosby in December, but over the past year, we have lost Uncle Chuck, Aunt Ceil and Grandpa Ralph (seen hear w/ Keller in Summer of 2005).

Life's a Beach

Probably my favorite picture ever taken of my son Keller and I. Keller is 4 months away from turning 3 in this photo (Feb 2006). My friend Jay took these - check out his work - http://www.jayzscherer.com/