New Month, New Opportunities

While I hope to make this blog less barren than it has been the past month I don't think I will make the press for one post a day again. Yet I shall attempt to open the blog up to some more dialogue between me and the inhabitants of the world I live in. (Yes that means you loyal readers) Many topics have arisen in the past few days and I have been meaning to comment on a couple of them but couldn't bring myself to dedicate an entire post to each individual topic so without further ado..."Potpourri."

- St. Louis Cardinals' Baseball - On my longer than it should be commute to work each morning I usually enter the car to hear a brief interlude by either Colin Cowherd or his replacement for that day. Yesterday Cowherd interviewed baseball Guru Peter Gammons and asked him to try and explain how St. Louis is competitive every single year and never seems to "decrease in value." Gammons explained how the city revolves around its baseball team and that the fans are so knowledgeable and so loyal that players want to come to play there, whoever they may be. He cited the fans as allowing players like Pujols, Carpenter, and Wainwright to actively "recruit" like college coaches to play in the best baseball town in America. While I'm not naive enough to think that I cause Matt Holliday or Mark DeRosa to come to Busch and hit long balls I must say I do have a bit of pride in being a part of something bigger, even if it is just "lowly" baseball.

- Disney buys Marvel Comics - While finance junkies and "business-folk" argue over the merits of this most recent of acquisitions by the Walt Disney Company, I must defer to the resident English scholar in training Dustin's poem for complete analysis from a fan's point of view. I being both a loyal Disney fan, in essence owning stock within the company by our recent purchase of a Vacation Club Membership, and a loyal Marvel fan, Stan Lee seems to epitomize the angst within the post-adolescent American male's psyche, am torn between what this could mean and what it will mean. It could, as Dustin points out mean the formation of a universal, ubiquitous Disney character arc for all fictional characters, it could mean (at least in theory) the death of massive theme park rides, it could also be part of a massive distribution machine that will push out the originality of Marvel ideas and advance them to a greater audience, think Pixar. Regardless of what will happen it should be fun to see what happens in the near and not so near future with the fates of these two giants in the entertainment industry.

-It keeps me running - Some are joking that while my wife gains the obligatory weight for carrying our daughter that I am choosing to lose that weight and that is not what a loyal husband should do. Well I must rebut that accusation and say that they are what keep me running. My wife and my daughter are what keep me pushing my "plowmans" to the pavement. To borrow a line from the movies "they make me want to be a better man." (I'd say bonus points to those who can name the movie but it's pretty easy) I only hope that by running now I will extend my time with both of them in the not so distant future.