December 16, 2010
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The Daily News1 So…Bob Feller walks into a bar.
2 Iowa farm boy whose parents built him a stadium, complete with scoreboard, when he was a kid.
3 Can you even begin to imagine?
4 He completely skipped the minors, and in July of 1936 at the age of 17, joined the Cleveland Indians as the youngest pitcher in baseball history.
5 He pitched three no-hitters and twelve one-hitters in a career that spanned twenty years. He was one of the only pitchers ever to have struck out his age, striking out seventeen when he was 17 years-old.
6 As I listened to reports coming in about Feller’s bout with both leukemia and pneumonia in the past week, I was amazed that nobody had made a major film about him. Yesterday I heard he had been put in hospice, so this was reasonably expected. As most people say, “But still…”
7 It was once reported that he threw a pitch over 107 mph.
8 Amazing.
9 That team up there just got immeasurably stronger.
10 I’m convinced that baseball was invented in heaven. It is just the Earth that corrupted it, up until this past season.
11 ; ) <———-sideways winky guy, making his appearance two days in a row.
12 Moving on, Part the First: I slept through the night last night, which gives me bragging rights to nine hours of sleep. That’s the good news.
13 The bad news is that I didn’t have a chance to work on the DN at around 1 a.m., which I have been able to do perfectly for the past month.
14 I’ve actually been going to bed early so that if I do awaken in the middle of the night, I have already banked some healthy sleep hours.
15 It’s worked famously for a while now, and I’ve gone into the classroom fresh as the proverbial daisy each day.
16 And the thing is, I still woke up a little early and got up so that I could get on this, but I had one of those mornings when it seems like virtually everything slowed me down a bit.
17 No details, because it happens to all of us. Just normal stuff.
18 But I got on this anyway, and began tacking away as swiftly as possible.
19 About fifteen minutes in, my computer completely shut down for “configuration of updates” or some blue-screen nightmare.
20 So it skipped and danced around for around ten minutes, then shut-down. When it came back up, the DN was wiped out, like words in the ocean sand.
21 I had some nice things written, but they’ll probably have to wait ’til tomorrow.
22 I ain’t trippin’.
24 You guys have a great day.
25 I’m out the door.
27 The funny thing is, I was having a GREAT morning with the students. This is probably my best academic class today, so everything was happening on their final. They are a class of writers, so they actually enjoy the final. The worst part about it is that they get arm cramps from so much writing. Otherwise these guys looked pretty pumped at some of the topics, as well as the creative freedom I give them.
28 I quietly slipped on some Bach fugues, and right after I did, a girl said, “Mr. Harrington, could we have some music?”
29 I said, “Sure. Here.” And the music was already playing. It was THAT sort of morning. Still is, except for trying to launch this silly thing.
30 Each time I tried to access pictures, Internet Explorer wouldn’t let me. When I finally attempted to bypass and try a simple copy and paste, it forbade it, with a loud “clunk” that the class heard.
31 I said, “Sorry.”
32 I tried again. Another loud clunk, followed by me saying, “Sorry again.”
33 I tried a third time to hit the X button. Another loud clunk.
34 I said, “Sorry a third time.” Chuckles.
35 I finally switched to Mozilla, and it now seems to be cooperating. Those two switch of doing this to me, almost every other day.
36 Things are going smoothly now, but it took an hour-ten to get the finals out, answer all the questions, and then mess around with the DN.
37 But as stated earlier, I ain’t trippin’.
38 I think it’s safe to say that this edition of the DN is going to land safely on your doorstep.
39 So have a great day. I don’t believe in bad days, just bad moments that happen and then are gone. Everything is already better, and the students were just rocking this morning. So was I, so it all works out.
40 That’s about it.
41 Let’s just call this a miracle DN and be on with it.
42 Have a wonderful day!
43 Peace.
~H~
www.xanga.com/bharrington
