I never imagined when I started this little website that I'd be talking about babies and toddlers, but now that BabySBG is running the show, well, what else is there to talk about? So, here's a sleep report. BabySBG goes to bed every night at 8PM. The routine is as follows: about 6:30, I tell her that bedtime is about 1:30 away. Then, periodically until 8PM, I give her a status update (35 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.). I think this is wholly unnecessary now, but it's a vestige of the nighttime training that I put in place around her first birthday. When eight rolls around, I inform her that it's bedtime. She goes over to her mother, gives her a hug, and we head up stairs. Sometimes, she walks up to her room on her own, sometimes I carry her. Then, I take her to her rocking chair, sing her one song and then put her in her crib, put a blanket on her, say good night, and hopefully, I don't see her again until I get home from work the next night.
Well, as I pointed out yesterday, it doesn't always work that way. And last night was one of those nights. At 9PM, she started crying. I usually let her cry, but after a while, I will go in and settle her down. Well, I went in last night and -- of course -- she said "Clock!" when she saw me. I picked her up, held her for a minute and she was sound asleep. I didn't hear another sound the rest of the night.
I consider her to be a pretty good sleeper, but there was a time when she fought this a little bit (or more than a little bit). I had to work with her, learn what I could do to calm her down, apply my tricks as needed, etc. We had a fairly lengthy routine, but I slowly chipped away at it until we got to the point where the current routine is more of a few minutes for Dad to enjoy BabySBG before she goes to bed. Interestingly, she absolutely will not behave for my wife when she tries to put her to bed. Will NOT. I'm not sure why she is an absolute angel for me and some sort of terror for her mother. I'd like to think it's because I'm father of the year or something, but in actuality, I'd like to figure out a way to get her to respond to her mother better. Any thoughts?
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I watched a little bit of the Wolves game last night and it seemed like the Wolves were maybe going to hang in there, but while I was away for about a minute, the Magic went a very quick run and put the game away in the third quarter. I didn't see what happened, but I can about imagine -- the Magic pounded it in to Howard, who had his way with whoever was guarding him. The Wolves didn't protect the perimeter, leaving guys wide open. A quick look at the box score suggests that might be what happened. In 1:19 of game time, the Magic went on a 9-2 run. Two threes and a traditional three point play by Howard and the game was blown open. By the end of the third quarter, it was a 20 point game. The Wolves scored 39 points in the fourth to make it look relatively close, but this was a blowout. It's not that terribly surprising or disappointing -- this Orlando club is one of the better clubs in the league. They have better talent than the Wolves, they were at home, and after allowing the Wolves to hang in there for a while, they stuck it to the Wolves in the second half and turned it into a laugher.
I turned back to the broadcast after the game and heard possibly the worst play-by-play guy in the league, Tom "Battle Back" Hanneman, tell me it was a "tough loss" for the Wolves. Tough loss? They were never in the game at any point over the last 18 or 19 minutes. The outcome wasn't decided on a back breaker at the buzzer, it was decided midway through the third quarter. This was a game that everyone expected the Wolves to lose, and they did. Convincingly. Not only do the Wolves have a crappy product on the floor, they have a television crew, anchored by Hanneman, who are totally divorced from reality. It's hard enough to watch this club lose and lose and lose, but at least in the old days we had Kevin "No Regard for Human Life!" Harlan. I miss those days.
SBG December 3, 2008, at 6:49 am 12 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)BabySBG
One of the fun things about little kids is how they get attached to certain things that don't really make a lot of sense. My wife was reading BabySBG the book "Goodnight Moon" and in the book there a couple of clocks. My wife pointed them out to her and she has become somewhat obsessed with clocks. So much so that the word Clock was one of the first 10 words that she said and is probably, after Hi, Mommy, and Daddy, the word she has said most often. Her vocabulary has really exploded over the last month or so, but her fascination with clocks has not diminished whatsoever.
We were down at the in-laws over Thanksgiving for four days and they have a number of clocks, including a grandfather clock in their living room, which chimes every 15 minutes. Like clockwork, so to speak, every time the thing chimed, BabySBG chimed in, "Clock! Clock!" After four days, it became one of those things that was kind of cute, but a lot cuter four days ago, if you get my drift.
Well, anyway, Lucy had a little clock for her and I hung it up in her room. Early Tuesday morning, BabySBG woke up and was crying. I'm in charge of getting up in the middle of the night if she needs anything (and believe me, it's a lot easier for me to attend to her than have my wife do it -- she'll go right to sleep for me, but wants to play with my wife). I usually let her cry for a while, because she will, 9 times out of 10, just go to sleep on her own. That's the most desirable result, of course. But, she persisted in her crying and I decided that she needed her sleep and that kind of overruled my normal inclination to let her cry it out. Normally when I go into her room in the middle of the night, I'll pick her up and she's asleep in 30 seconds. Not this time. I picked her up and she immediately started screaming bloody murder. She has a cry and then there's this high pitched scream. It was high pitched scream time. I have various techniques to try to calm her down, but this time I tried something new. I said, "where's your clock?"
Immediately, she stopped screaming, pointed in the dark toward her time piece and said, "Clock!" She then snuggled up to her Dad. I rocked her for about 15 seconds and told her that I was going to put her in the crib again. She voiced her approval of that idea. I got up, put her in the crib, and walked out of the room. She went from screaming at the top of her lungs to calmly laying in her crib in under a minute. Behold the power of the clock.
Once again this morning, she was awake and crying. My wife suggested that I get up and attend to her. I waited for a while and then determined again that maybe it was best for all of us if I head in there. So, I opened the door and there was my 19 month old daughter, sitting in her crib crying. As I approached her, I saw her little arm rise in the darkness and point to the wall. "Clock!" It's as if she had the overwhelming urge to tell her Dad that she had a clock on the wall. No crying. No discontent. Clock. I didn't even have to pick her up.
I did pick her up and rock her for a few seconds. I asked her if she just wanted to say hi to Dad. She said "Yeah", although I doubt she really understood what I was saying. I asked her if she was ready to go back into the crib. No response. She was already sleeping. I put her back in her crib and went back to bed.
BabySBG doesn't suck her thumb, have a special blanket, and has never taken a pacifier. That's something that I've really liked, she seems secure without those objects. But, I've noticed lately that she's started to have attachment to things -- her dolls, rubber ducks (including a specific one -- how she remembered that one is beyond me). And now, she has a clock that doubles as a security blanket of sorts. I don't pretend to understand it, but hey, whatever gets you through the night.
After a long dry spell, I finally started writing around here again last week. It felt good, honestly, to just put some words on the screen. I even worked on a new look for the site on Saturday, one that is much easier to read than the current monstrosity (although I've moved the T-Wolves game logs to the front page for the time being, so that's an improvement over Game 163 staring us in the face for a long time). My wife even commented. She said, "I read what you wrote about the Timberwolves game. You swear too much." Thud. It's hard to explain to her that the Wolves can really drive a guy to drink or swear, but she's probably not going to understand or care about such things, so I promise, no swearing today, honey.
But, holy poop. Did you see that the Wolves absolutely drilled the Pistons on Sunday night? I knew that the Pistons were up next, but I was away from the computer on Sunday, off prematurely putting up the old Christmas tree and performing various other domestic tasks. I had no idea that the Wolves had played on Sunday until about 12:30 AM. And then, I see a 26 point win over the Pistons, dropping Detroit to 4-5 since the Iverson trade. That was the Wolves' first road win of the season and such a I-can't-believe-it moment that one has to stop and think -- is this team better than I thought? Well, the Wolves did get a home win in New Orleans last year early on in the season (and the second road win took a while), so it's not impossible for a really bad team to get one on the road every now and then, but an almost 30 point win???? That's a little harder to explain.
I think it says a lot more about the Pistons than anything. I watched them play the Celtics on Thursday night and it was ugly. The Pistons may have gone to the Eastern Conference finals for the last 15 seasons or so, but this is most definitely the end of the line. They are old, they are unmotivated, and they've got an all-timer in their division and he's not about to let his Cleveland club end up anywhere short of the ECF this year, and that club that Detroit played on Thursday night looks even tighter than the one that cut down the nets last June. Anything is possibllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllle, I suppose, but the Pistons are looking up at a steep climb this year. With Rasheed and Iverson coming off the books, they can maybe infuse some new talent into their club via free agency, but they can forget about getting into the LBJ sweepstakes, what with the Knicks getting themselves about $45 million under the cap in 2010, there ain't no luring the King to Mo-town.
But, anyway, Sunday's was a nice win for the hometown club and it was nice to see the Answer come up big for the Wolves. As much as I enjoyed seeing the Big Ticket on Friday night, it wasn't a lot of fun watching the absolutely dreadful Wolves. I found myself clapping when the Celtics scored, and although I didn't make a big demonstration of it or anything, I was pulling for a Celtics win. Yep, I'm a bigger KG fan than Wolves fan. The Answer got absolutely torched by Rajon Rondo. I've heard it said that by next year, the Big Three in Boston will be KG, Pierce, and Rondo, with Allen being the fourth option. I can see that happening.
As for the other Answer, it looks like the question is, who's going to be willing to pay him next year and how much of a salary cut is he going to take? It's going to be significant and I'm not sure anymore who would want him. I'm a big AI fan, but he's not an elite player anymore. I wouldn't pay him big bucks, that's for sure.
I mentioned that I found out about the Wolves game at about 12:30. I went to bed early, but woke up about 11:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. Finally, about 12:30 I got up, took a Unisom and checked The WGOM, where I found the game log. I've never, ever taken a sleeping aid in my entire life before, but I needed to sleep and doggone it if a dosage isn't two tablets. So, I took one (because I didn't want to sleep until 9 AM), fell asleep and woke up totally rested at 5:00. I don't want to make that a habit or anything (it's supposed to be non-habit forming and man, it's better than lying in bed awake all night), but my day isn't ruined, so that's good.
Speaking of which, I'd better sign off now. No swearing. Is that better, Lucy?
Well, the Second Annual SBG Convention is now history. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. We had a beautiful day in the park, a pretty good turnout and a nice Twins win.
I got to Minnehaha Falls Park early in the morning so that I could claim a spot. There were a couple of choice spots that were already taken, but I was able to snag a decent spot, albeit one that was a ways away from the parking lot. All that meant really, was that trips to the car to get stuff took a little longer.
Andrew and his friend Q were the first to arrive. Our guy Andrew ran a 5K Saturday morning, and they came over to the Park from there. Then, my right hand man on the Convention, Banjo showed up and we started cooking. Pretty soon, the other people showed up and we had a nice picnic. Folks were talking baseball, visiting in general and having a good time. BabySBG was there, and most folks got to "hear" what a fish said. Folks got a chance to meet the inimitable ubelmann. I didn't get a chance to talk to him as much as I would have liked, but that's okay. It was fun to actually met him and put a face to all the writings.
Will Young brought a delicious birthday cake in honor of Sheenie, his wife and SBG Nation citizen and Andrew, both of whom were celebrating birthdays that day. I was not celebrating my birthday, but I enjoyed the cake nonetheless.
It seemed like the day just flew by. I think we could have started the thing at 12 Noon and people would still have been reluctant to head out at 5 PM. But, we had to get to the game. So, off we went. The game itself was fast moving, with very little offense until the Twins exploded for six runs in the seventh inning. New Guy made a number of predictions, and I'm pretty sure all of them came true. Ha!
John Bonnes, AKA, "The Twins Geek" stopped by at the game and gave us all free copies of his wonderful "Game Day" program. Thanks, John.
All in all, it was a fun day. I got to spend some time talking with pretty much everyone, which was cool. Anytime you get to talk Twins with the likes of Aaron, Seth, Nick and all the rest of the guys is a good time. Thanks to everyone who came to the Convention and thanks to Banjo for all your help. It was a fun time. Hopefully, next year's convention will be even better.
On Saturday, we had a little dry run for the SBG Convention. Banjo hosted E-6 and I for a little barbeque and Twayn met us at the Yankees game. I learned a little bit about the logistics of what it takes for the Convention.
Lucy, BabySBG and I arrived at Banjo's place about 3:30. I figured that a couple of hours would be enough time to enjoy a barbeque and get to the game. Wrong. We had a couple of brews, chatted for a while and then Banjo fired up the grill and made some great kabobs. We're sitting around, visiting and my cell phone rings. It's Twayn, wondering where we are at. Oh, crap! The game was starting in 15 minutes and we're still eating. So, we scramble to get to the dome in the duct-tape-mobile. By the time we get there, it's raining, the game is in the bottom of the first. Never fear, though, the game went 12 innings, so we saw plenty of baseball. I don't normally boo, but the Yankees were playing so slow that I couldn't take it. I mean, have these guys never played before? Do they really need to have 10 conferences on the mound every inning? It was freaking ridiculous.
Anyway, the second annual SBG Convention is Saturday June 21. I'm thinking about 2:00 or so we'll start. I'm not sure where yet, but the key is going to be to get together and visit. I've always had a good time visiting with Citizens. I'll be bringing Lucy and the always charming BabySBG (actually, Lucy is always charming, too). We want to have the barbeque at a park. I'm going to bring my glove so we can at least play catch. Bring the wife and kids, if you've got them.
The game is against the AZ Diamondbacks. They are a good team. We'll be sitting in upper deck reserved. The tickets are $20 a piece. I'm going to buy the tickets about ten days or so before the convention. So, please let me know how many tickets you need. As far as the bar-b-que is concerned, I think $5 a person/$7 a family would be good. I'll kick in the difference. We'll have something relatively easy to make and I'll bring softdrinks on ice. If you want something more adult to drink, you'll have to bring your own. If you want to just go to the game, that's fine. If you just want to go to the picnic, that's fine, too. I hope you can make it. Please e-mail me at sbg at stickandballguy dot com to reserve your spot.
Andrew and Banjo have expressed interest in helping out. I'm hoping we'll have a big turnout. Come and be a part of the Convention!
[SBG Note: We are anticipating that BabySBG will be born on Wednesday. That's not some stupid guess, but rather is based on knowledge that we acquired this morning.]
Wolves lose again by 22, Kevin Love down to 17 minutes. This is the worst possible situation for the Wolves. They are driving what is left of their fan base with a tremendous stretch of terrible basketball. Their best, or second-best, player has checked out and is getting buried on the bench. I doubt that Love is in their long term plans. How's that O.J. Mayo deal looking now?
davidwatts wrote: I was very disappointed that the Mankato CBS station went to the Marquette game instead of sticking to the UNI game
and my bracket is done blown up!
meat wrote: Cc to Andrew: I'm suddenly going to be in Dublin for a short weekend this summer (late June), any suggestions would be good as to where to stay / eat drink / be Irish.
spookymilk wrote: Boy oh boy, would most of those references be lost on my...let's call them …
twayn wrote: Danke! Bummer that there's no radio for Friday's game with the Mets.
Slowey vs. Johan.
Klawitter wrote: Working in Century City. Living for the moment in Westwood, at least until I sell my place in DC this spring and move everything.
New Britain Bo wrote: How's this for script idea:
At a planning session for an … a committee of twelve Indians (4 dot, 4 feather, 4 West) hires a crack director to run their event. He shows up at…
DK wrote: I missed this earlier today since I was apparently too busy … in the Nightmare thread, but I'd be down with this too. In fact, I'd probably be willing to contribute to coverage.
Milt on Tilt wrote: I'm picking up my puppy tomorrow. I couldn't be more excited.
spookymilk wrote: Oh, and Rhu: one of my challenges in this week's Survivor game was to do a six-word evaluation of Lew Zealand. These were the … flinger never flounders for puns.
Better than Belladonna with fish…
spookymilk wrote: Ah. Well, I'd be in favor of both, if the technology isn't a killer to the site somehow.
hungry joe wrote: i wasn't planning on going out, but two heavies from my company were in town, and they took me out for a crazy night (got home at 2, and i've been hating life most of…
spookymilk wrote: I instantly love the person who took that photo, hungry man.
I'm sitting here drinking Bass; yesterday I went the nostalgia route with my St. Pat's choice, opting for a drink that reminded me of college…
spookymilk wrote: To be fair, drama is kind of the world I live in. I'm prone to exaggeration. Plus, I'm drunk because this script is making me tense and I needed to take the edge…
Milt on Tilt wrote: Yeah, man. I wouldn't "disregard" it either, because it was truly a horrifying move.
Oh come now. That's just being completely over dramatic.
Milt on Tilt wrote: O-Cab lead the majors in Outs as a batter in 2009. Call me … Jimmy Rollins actually did. But Cabrera was second, and first in the AL. Even so. I could use that same…
nibbish wrote: I don't know what to make of it. On one hand, Cabrera was made of suck. On the other, any shortstop we put in there was going to.
I'd have to side with DK and…
spookymilk wrote: Yeah, man. I wouldn't "disregard" it either, because it was truly a horrifying move. 0-Cab cleared the bases for the team's best hitter over and over. I know it's nice to remember…
DK wrote: O-Cab was a baseball band-aid over a severed limb. Acting like doing that was a "victory" is what seems foolish to me.
brianS wrote: I dunno. But we're not really talking about a legal argument so much as an ethical one, I think.
Moss wrote: The old "you can't have your coke and snort it too" … can't get a conviction on a … test...and is possession of any amount of coke a felony??
December 4, 2008, at 7:38 am 
Recent Letters to the Editor
In Response to Cup of Coffee: March 18, 2010,
davidwatts wrote: I was very disappointed that the Mankato CBS station went to the Marquette game instead of sticking to the UNI game and my bracket is done blown up!
meat wrote: Cc to Andrew: I'm suddenly going to be in Dublin for a short weekend this summer (late June), any suggestions would be good as to where to stay / eat drink / be Irish.
spookymilk wrote: Boy oh boy, would most of those references be lost on my...let's call them …
twayn wrote: Danke! Bummer that there's no radio for Friday's game with the Mets. Slowey vs. Johan.
Klawitter wrote: Working in Century City. Living for the moment in Westwood, at least until I sell my place in DC this spring and move everything.
New Britain Bo wrote: How's this for script idea: At a planning session for an … a committee of twelve Indians (4 dot, 4 feather, 4 West) hires a crack director to run their event. He shows up at…
DK wrote: I missed this earlier today since I was apparently too busy … in the Nightmare thread, but I'd be down with this too. In fact, I'd probably be willing to contribute to coverage.
Milt on Tilt wrote: I'm picking up my puppy tomorrow. I couldn't be more excited.
spookymilk wrote: Oh, and Rhu: one of my challenges in this week's Survivor game was to do a six-word evaluation of Lew Zealand. These were the … flinger never flounders for puns. Better than Belladonna with fish…
spookymilk wrote: Ah. Well, I'd be in favor of both, if the technology isn't a killer to the site somehow.
In Response to Nightmares at WGOMville,
hungry joe wrote: i wasn't planning on going out, but two heavies from my company were in town, and they took me out for a crazy night (got home at 2, and i've been hating life most of…
spookymilk wrote: I instantly love the person who took that photo, hungry man. I'm sitting here drinking Bass; yesterday I went the nostalgia route with my St. Pat's choice, opting for a drink that reminded me of college…
hungry joe wrote:
Milt on Tilt wrote: hehe. Beer.
spookymilk wrote: To be fair, drama is kind of the world I live in. I'm prone to exaggeration. Plus, I'm drunk because this script is making me tense and I needed to take the edge…
Milt on Tilt wrote: Yeah, man. I wouldn't "disregard" it either, because it was truly a horrifying move. Oh come now. That's just being completely over dramatic.
Milt on Tilt wrote: O-Cab lead the majors in Outs as a batter in 2009. Call me … Jimmy Rollins actually did. But Cabrera was second, and first in the AL. Even so. I could use that same…
nibbish wrote: I don't know what to make of it. On one hand, Cabrera was made of suck. On the other, any shortstop we put in there was going to. I'd have to side with DK and…
spookymilk wrote: Yeah, man. I wouldn't "disregard" it either, because it was truly a horrifying move. 0-Cab cleared the bases for the team's best hitter over and over. I know it's nice to remember…
DK wrote: O-Cab was a baseball band-aid over a severed limb. Acting like doing that was a "victory" is what seems foolish to me.
In Response to Luna - 23 Minutes In Brussels (Tell Me Do You Miss Me),
E-6 wrote: Love me some Luna.
In Response to Cup of Coffee: March 17, 2010,
brianS wrote: I dunno. But we're not really talking about a legal argument so much as an ethical one, I think.
Moss wrote: The old "you can't have your coke and snort it too" … can't get a conviction on a … test...and is possession of any amount of coke a felony??
hungry joe wrote: tell me about it...
brianS wrote: It is hard to consume if you do not possess.