THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Concert Review

In yet another tribute to Ann's 60th birthday (there have been two dinners at the Pomegranate, a bistro near our house and one lunch at Moti's, a restaurant a few miles away), I took Ann to a concert at Strathmore Hall (image of empty hall on the left, we had seats about 4 rows from the stage near the center). The National Philharmonic was there with a guest violin soloist. The soloist did one piece by Dvorak and one by Saint Saens. In addition to the two solos, the first half of the concert had the Overture to DeMeistersinger (Wagner).

The second half of the concert had Mahler's symphony #1 (I'm not a Mahler fan).

We saw about a dozen people we knew.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:31 PM

Monday, May 25, 2009

Curtain rod Problem and its results

After much discussion, on May 25, I finally took down the pull-cord curtain rod near the dining room table. This was done to bring it to Sears and see if we could find a near-look alike. Of course we couldn't and ordered a transverse rod.

The unscrewing of the various parts of the braces holding the curtain rod caused me to strain my back. By May 26, the pain was really bad. I called my doctor who saw me on May 28. He used a stretching exercise which, about an hour after being done, relieved the pain (it took another hour or so to get the medicine for muscle relaxation).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:26 PM

Saturday, May 23, 2009

A Gas Station Dream

I dreamt that Montgomery County had passed a law requiring some percentage of gas stations to be 'gay friendly' and some to be 'lesbian friendly' (I think heteros would also be allowed to use the stations however).

There was a neighborhood meeting to discuss whether the station in the Cabin John Mall area should be such a station. Then I woke up.

We had a shiuir on dreams at the synagogue before Mincha (about 12 hours after my dream).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:10 PM

Friday, May 22, 2009

Another Strange Dream

I dream't that I was in charge of a fundraiser (I don't remember the beneficiary) .

The idea was a lottery and if you won you would get to spend a weekend in a prison in a maximum security center. It seemed to go fine and a lot of people were in the room for the drawing and the 'winner' was happy about it.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 8:07 AM

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Pitcher Bats Third

A mistake by the manager who wrote up the line up card on May 17 resulted in Tampa pitcher Andy Sonnonstine batting third. As the images show, he throws with his right hand but bats left. Tampa won the game, Sonnonstine went 1 for 3 and got the win. Irwin noticed this for me.

This seems to be the first time since 1968 that a pitcher has batted above the 7th spot in the starting lineup.

Article

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:10 AM

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

M Fails to Notice an Anomaly

I had booked our tickets to and from Atlanta several weeks ago. I printed out the itinery several times. However, I did not notice an anomaly until I was in the Atlanta airport for the return trip to the Washington D.C. area.

The anomaly was that we departed for Atlanta from National Airport but we were to arrive back in DC at Dulles.

Since our car was at National Airport, we had some problems. Eventually we made it back home (a few hours later than expected).

Among the things we saw in Atlanta was Piedmont Park (which has a nice lake in it apparently suitable for alligator habitat and a Museum of Paper. At the latter I bought several book marks made from Elephant Dung (this stuff was used in the paper making process in Asia at one time).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:03 PM

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Cribbage Events

After supper on May 8, George and I were playing cribbage. After the first deal (pegging, hands and crib) the score was 4-3. This was possibly the lowest score I've ever seen for the first hand of the game. George continued to get bad hands but my hands improved. After I had a substantial lead, George had nobs on three occasions and, while counting the one point for nobs, he also said, "but its only 1 point, big deal" (or words to that effect). Each time he said this I said, "Blasphemy!" Then as I was about ready to win I said "Your late game blasphemy was punished by my early game lead as an act of divine foreknowledge."

(I had spelled the 1-point count 'knobs' until Irwin pointed out to me it was spelled 'nobs'. This is confirmed by the wikipedia site on the rules of cribbage. )

posted by Martin Weiss  # 9:35 PM

Friday, May 08, 2009

Baseball News

Manny Ramirez (image) received a 50 day suspension after testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin a.k.a., hCG (a substance that counters the effects of steroids regarding the suppression of natural testosterone). This happened in the middle of a home stand in LA against the Nationals. It also was during a home stand in which LA set the record for consecutive home victories to start a season. LA ended with 13 victories (the Nationals beat them 11-9 on May 7 in a game which LA had a 6-0 lead after the 1st inning and a 6-1 lead after 5 innings). The record had been 12 by the Detroit in 1913 (seems like a wimpy record to me given that numerous teams have had 20+ win streaks).

Not related but also a baseball event this week was the 6 steals in an inning by Tampa's Carl Crawford (vs. Boston). This tied the steals in a game record. Other holders of the record are: Eddie Collins (twice in 1912), Otis Nixon (1991) and Eric Young (1996). Nixon was suspended for 60 games in 1991 (while playing for Atlanta) for drug related reasons. Young also hit .324 that year for the Rockies.

Article about Ramirez
LA tying the Detroit Record
Article about Win Streak Ending
Stolen Base Record

posted by Martin Weiss  # 6:14 PM

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

New Mower; then another New Mower

The grass in the front yard was high and the lawn service was backed up. Also I had read in the paper that people would know the economy had hit bottom when people in Potomac began to mow their own lawn.

I tried starting our old (5 year old) mower. It didn't start and two wheels were broken. So I went to Home Depot and bought a new one (about $130). The bolts and nuts didn't fit together so I brought it back and got a different model (about $150) that was closer to fully assembled. It looks a lot like the one in the image. The front wheels are 7" in diameter and the rear wheels are 8" (the image looks like a greater difference).

A few hours after I finished, it started to rain yet again. Also, Sue Myers was visiting us (from Havre de Grace, Md).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:54 PM

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Tickets but No Game

G and I had tickets to today's Washington - St Louis game but it was rained out (we didn't travel downtown as we figured that this would happen - it has been raining steadily for days and the ground is saturated).

A few hours after the rainout was announced, I had the TV on and there was a baseball game on that the TV program guide said was St Louis at Washington. I was a bit ticked off at first then I noticed that the National's had Frank Robinson as manager and that the stadium looked kind of ugly and that they had John Patterson pitching and that on TV they were playing against Philadelphia. Then I realized that this was a rebroadcast of a game played 3 years ago at RFK stadium.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:45 PM

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