By the way, happy birthday Dennis.

Had a nice visit in Ashland yesterday with DONNA, her daughter Corey, and DENVER LOU.
Donna can read, but very slowly, so doesn't read the forum much. She asked me to say hello to everyone, and relay that she misses it.

Funny you should mention Donna, JR.

Saturday I left Chicago at 3am bound for Pittsburgh. Arrived around 1 eastern time to visit my cousin in the Heinz VA hospital. Three weeks ago he was diagnosed with cancer - terminal. They gave him about 2 months. I stayed at the hospital for about 4 hours. I left Pittsburgh around 5pm. I was going to drop down to Ashland but by the time I got to the hwy 250 exit it was already too late to visit without announcing myself (I didn't have her phone number with). I may try again my next trip after my cousin passes.

People don't get any better than Donna and Sonny.

No they don't Seagull.

We had on average 6" of rainfall in the Chicago land area between yesterday morning and this afternoon. Every expressway has flooding. Almost paralysed the city. The suburbs are worse. Some areas reporting 7"+. Needless to say, almost every stream and river are overflowing their banks. Those that haven't will by tomorrow afternoon when all of this runoff is complete. I had some flooding in the basement and definitely had to move the trailer out of harms way. Record crest on the Kishwaukee was 23'5". It's expected to crest tomorrow or Saturday at 19+ feet. Suburban streets and neighborhoods are flooded. What a mess! I've lived here for over 40 years now and I have never seen anything like this.

That's crazy, Joe! I just saw video on the news showing a sinkhole with 2 parked cars falling in it, and sold-out sump pumps at Home Depot. Stay dry as much as you can!

seagull wrote:People don't get any better than Donna and Sonny.

POTY!!

To think that my last ride on the river last year was one of avoiding low spots and tugging my kayak behind me with a nylon rope most of the trip. The river bed had weeds growing that were at least 12" high. We were in the midst of a drought. We were under red conditions most of the summer. We were still under drought conditions prior to this rainfall. We didn't have enough snow to help the situation any. No camp fires all last summer because all the vegetation was so dry.

With the rainfall yesterday and this morning, I don't think they will have to worry much about drought in northern Illinois for quite a while. I don't know how much more we can take though. Another thunderstorm just rolled through. It only lasted for about an hour, but the rain was pretty heavy. By tomorrow, I'm almost positive the the total accumlation will be very close to 7".

I don't know how you folks down Cleveland way escaped this mess.

At least the Mississippi should recover nicely. Two branches of the Kishwaukee, one out of DeKalb and one out of Crystal Lake join together form one near the campground. The Kishwaukee dumps into the Rock River and the Rock feeds the Mississippi. The whole state got a good soaking. The Mississippi should reap the benefits. Badly needed benefits.

Seems between The Browns and The Cavaliers, Cleveland sports are hot on the national media coverage today.

Besides Browns and Cavaliers news, Cleveland had a baseball team in today's sports news.

The Indians lost to Boston by a score of 6-3, swept in a three game series by the BoSox, and are the losers of four straight as no one in Cleveland seems to care.

Though Clevelanders were indeed happy to vote Barack Obama into office by over 90% of the Cleveland vote last November.

It seems there is some bliss among those who live in Cleveland.

Odd, but today Mark Shapiro looks brighter in today's Cleveland sports news than either Jimmy Haslam or Dan Gilbert.




Something to be said about that, I guess.

(no rebates for those who don't figure out what to say)

Highs in the lower 70's Wednesday and Thursday during those torrential downpours, sleet and snow flurries today and into the night. Low tonight expected to be 29 with 15-20 mph windgusts. Wind chill factor in the lower 20's. Pretty much the same tomorrow. Crazy! The sox game was postponed earlier today because of the cold weather. Welcome to springtime in the north central.

This Reynolds guy seems to be working out pretty well. Maybe he's remarkably streaky and will end the season with the same kind of stats as he had last year, but it might be worth thinking about offering to extend his deal before he has a chance to hit the market again. It's not like we have a long stream of power hitters or 1st basemen waiting in the wings in our minor leagues.

After the string of incredibly sub-standard 1st basemen we've used for the past decade or so, it's kind of nice to have three or four good hitting ones on the team at the same time (not sure Giambi actually counts as 1st baseman anymore)

Not a bad idea about having a power RH bat for awhile.

Another problem, Gomes looks decent behind the plate and can certainly hit better than Marson but making hime ride the bench behind Santana might not work so well. He can play 3B, I think and perhaps some other position. Any ideas?

Bueller? Ferris Bueller?

It's not too bad to have too much talent on hand! Someone can be counted on to fall on the steps and hurt his wrist, get spiked sliding into first, or go into a prolonged slump. Gomes catching a couple days a week is OK until some emergency creates greater playing time.

With the ability of Swisher to play OF, and all the starting OFs to play center, and Reynolds to play 3rd, and Aviles to play anywhere in the IF, it means any temporary change can be filled by any spare part (e.g. Bourne goes down, so RF moves to CF, 1b moves to RF, C moves to 1b, and Gomez moves in to the lineup)