Connectivity

This post isn't up to par. It is hard to invent clever stories w/out proper material. Even Tiger Woods shoots over par sometimes.

Email on a ship is guaranteed to break once a week. It's just a given. Email in Iraq has proven to be quite the opposite. In fact, email has not gone down once. Ok, that's a stretch b/c it is currently down and has been for two days. However, I'll take this opportunity voice pleasure in the Marine's email system. The flip side is that Internet is still up and I'll take the Internet over email any day. The strange part is that this outage only interrupts email to non-military emails. Go figure ... all the regular work related stuff still gets through.

The Padres made a splash this afternoon sending two players to the Cubbies, in what amounts to an exchange of catchers, sending back-up Rob Bowen and a minor leaguer for Michael Barrett. If you recall, Barrett is the guy who always seems to be in a fight - see his altercations with Roy Oswalt, AJ Pierzynski, Carlos Zambrano and Rich Hill. He is an above average bat (right handed power - which is good for PETCO) and well below average defensively. Hell, we had Mike Piazza last year and survived - so I think that if he swings up to his lifetime average it will be a good thing. I don't know anything about the minor leaguer other than he was the #35 overall pick last year (19 year old outfielder). I think that trade makes sense. We'll see how it works out. I read the online rumor mill and it had the Padres in discussion w/ Cincy about Adam Dunn. Padres GM, KT, says the price tag of Hensley, Hampson, and a quality minor leaguer was "not worth talking about." I think that means that the Padres aren't likely to get the big bat prior to the 31 July trade deadline. Surprise, Surprise. Padres value pitching too much and with the best record in th NL - I say that is what he gets paid the big bucks for and that we'll just have to see how it goes. Assuming BGiles gets back sometime soon, the platoon of Sledge and Cruz will remain in left field.

Today I watched a movie Happy Campers and it was terrible. Don't rush to Blockbuster to go rent it - you'll surely be disappointed.

Izzy - best of luck to you and the two little ones back in Texas. Colleen and I are sad to see you and your little ones leave. Ya'll are bombish!