Day 241

Finally: There is nothing better than when you have the first good days of the spring. The weather turns and it seems like everyone comes out of the woodwork and is outside. This weekend we couldn't have had better weather. It was 70 and sunny both Saturday and Sunday. We did out best to take advantage and make the most of it. We spent Saturday walking outside at Legacy for a couple of hours and chilled on our deck in the morning. Yesterday we spent a couple of hours walking through the Metroparks with Casey and Andrew. Andrew slept pretty much the whole time and Casey loved it. A side-note: I haven't been to the Metroparks in years and it is very quiet with lots of places to walk dogs, ride bikes, and they have horse trails as well. My dad used to go to the Metroparks by himself during the summer, throw his headphones on and go for a walk. So when we were looking for a place to park we ended up down a big hill where other calls were. We started walking up this big hill pushing Andrew and walking Casey. Halfway up I turned to Leah and I said "I know my father, there is no way he was hiking up this hill, he must have found the only flat trails and walked them." Sure enough, my mom said that was indeed the case. We ended the weekend by grilling with my mom and grandmother at my mom's house. Andrew was pretty good across the board - real quiet and slept a lot. That was a positive. On the other end, he probably didn't eat as much, therefore didn't sleep very well. He was up at 3 AM Sunday morning and last night 11:30, 2:30, and 6. Leah and I took turns. Since I am gone the majority of this week for work, the guilty conscious kicked in. No naps for me this weekend and two 6:15 wake ups for me. I did get in The Godfather over Saturday and Sunday mornings (which by the way, is better than II - I don't care what others say. As good as II is, I is still the best.) Andrew also had his first meeting with one of his new girlfriends, Laila Bilsky, on Saturday night. He is eagerly anticpating his first date with Ella Schneider.

C-Town Sports: Some of you will be proud of me - yesterday was Game 1 of the Cavs/Wizards playoff series. The game was at 12:30. It was such a beautiful day and as much as I wanted to watch the game start to finish, it was just too nice to sit inside all day. I was home by halftime though. I was working the solid split screen technique with the Tribe/D'Rays game. It shows you where my priorities with my teams are though. This was one of 162 regular season Tribe games while the Cavs were playing a playoff game, but they got equal standing. If this was a later round, things would be different; but I love my Tribe. So the Cavs are in the playoffs where with their draw they should easily dispose of the Wizards. The Tribe is always a hot topic and have kicked into their season. Yet everyone in this town wants to talk about the Browns still. All of the sports talk shows are "who should we draft, Brady Quinn or Adrian Peterson." I've been hearing this for the last month. What have the Browns done to deserve all of this attention and love? Since they have come back in 1999, we've seen nothing but a pathetic product, overhaul of management three different times, terrible drafting, and an overall lack of talent. Yet, the people of this town come back for more. I just don't get it. MD dropped the Browns from his radar screen back in 95 and never looked back. He's all Tribe all the time. Meanwhile, my uncle Kenny loves one team and one team only, the Browns. The best sports writer in town, Terry Pluto wrote a similar column this past weekend. He doesn't get it either.

Speaking of the Red, White, and Blue - I have officially seen it all with them. Thursday the Indians were attempting to avoid a three game sweep at the hands of the hated NY Yankees. After a big Victor Martinez three run HR and an insurance run, the Tribe led 6-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. New closer Joe "Bob Wickman redux" Borowski retired the first two Yankees and was one out away from the W. Then the wheels came off the wagon. Next thing you know its 6-5 with two on Alex Rodriguez, baseball's hottest player, stepping to the plate. Borowski uncorks a wild pitch and the runners move to second and third. So now first base is open. Its a no-brainer, A-Rod's run means nothing and he is on fire - you walk him. Not our genius manager Eric Wedge. The next pitch, A-Rod hits a three run home run to center. Tribe loses 8-6. Cleveland teams continue to find new ways to lose. Classic. In the meantime, the Tribe was in town last weekend when it was 35 degrees and this weekend it was 70 and sunny and they were in Tampa Bay. They did win two of three and are 8-7 to start. With all things considered - the four cancellations because of snow, moving to Milwaukee for three games, being the worst fielding team I've seen in years, and the fact that we can only score by hitting home runs, things could definitely be worse. I scared Andrew again when I went nuts on Ryan Garko's game winning three-run homer in the 9th.

Thoughts on a Tragedy: There is no doubt in anyones mind, what happened at Virginia Tech last week was a horrible, senseless act of violence that is beyond tragic. You start to hear these stories of the people killed by this mad man, and it really makes things so much worse. This could have happened at any college in the country. That is what is so scary. None of us are safe - there is a mad man roaming in every town in America. So this nut job puts together an 1800 page manifesto, takes pictures of himself pointing his weapons at the camera, and sends a videotaped message blaming everyone but himself for what he was then about to do. So NBC News received all of this information and went straight to the air with it. At first, I thought it was ok that they aired this - we all had the right to put a face to this nut case. The more I thought about it, the more I thought the videotapes should not have been aired. This is exactly what this guy wanted - to become famous and let the world see and know the reasons why he committed 32 murders before putting the gun on himself. That's about the only good thing - the guy is dead. But with these videotapes, the families of the victims as well as the people who escaped will be haunted by his words for the rest of their lives. Its just so sad. The whole thing. my thoughts are with everyone in Blacksburg, VA.

Gun Control: Piggybacking on the Virginia Tech tragedy, I have to talk about guns. Now I am not one to go hunting. There are plenty of people I know who do and love it. But is there any reason that handguns are legal in this country still? I haven't done the research, but how many people die because of guns every year? Whether its an accidental shooting, a murder, whatever, to me, there is little to no reason why anyone should own a handgun. So many people own them for protection. Maybe I'm naive - I never lived in a world where anyone needed a gun to protect themselves. They say Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I don't buy that. The access to guns in this country is a joke. They can be obtained legally with no problem assuming one passes a background check, but in any city in America, if you want to get a gun illegally, you can. Call me too liberal, but it is what it is. Is there any good reason that semi-automatic weapons are legal? For sporting reasons? Please with that. To me, all handguns and semi-automatic weapons should be banned. Let the hunters stick to rifles, old school style.

Song of the Day: "Why" by Jadakiss