I Think and I Post Things

In a serendipitous series of events, last night my wife and I finished re-watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and today I learned that the Angels' AA farm team - located in Madison, AL - is called the Rocket City Trash Pandas . I kinda want a Trash Panda hat now. And I'm jealous of Angels fans. Photo Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/trashpandas/comments/6aqcot/so_much_worse/ For more on the Trash Pandas, click here or here . 

I used to be a pretty decent runner. Sophomore year of high school I ran a 5:05 mile. Back in 2009 I ran a half marathon in like 1:45:48 (if memory serves). I had some top ten finishes in 5Ks in Louisiana in and around 2010. But now? Yeesh. I'll be honest, I've weighed more than I do now, but I don't know that I've been in much worse shape. It doesn't help that I'm 40. But in an effort to change that, I've started "running" again. It's probably more accurately "jogging" but who's counting. In any case, I did a little over 2 miles on Sunday and a little over 2 more today. Which is two more times than I ran in the previous 9 months, so yay me! For fun, we're going to track my progress here to help with my accountability. So here's how it's gone far: 3/14 - 2.2 miles, 9:35 pace 3/16 - 2.16 miles, 9:30 pace Age 40 Total = 4.36 miles Let's see if I can get another run or two in before the end of the week!

On February 4th, the Rockets won for the 7th time in 8 games and improved to 11-10 on the season. Since then? 15 STRAIGHT LOSSES... They've still got a ways to go before they tie the all-time record (28 straight by the 76ers spanning two seasons), but they have NOT looked good. Here's a look at the streak so far: Date Opponent Score Leading Scorer 6-Feb vs San Antonio L 111-106 John Wall - 27 8-Feb at Charlotte L 119-94 Victor Oladipo - 21 9-Feb at New Orleans L 130-101 John Wall - 25 11-Feb vs Miami L 101-94 John Wall - 17 13-Feb at New York L 121-99 John Wall - 26 15-Feb at Washington L 131-119 John Wall - 29 17-Feb at Philadelphia L 118-113 John Wall - 28 22-Feb vs Chicago L 120-100 David Nwaba - 22 24-Feb at Cleveland L 112-96 John Wall - 20 26-Feb at Toronto L 122-111 Victor Oladipo - 27 28-Feb vs Memphis L 133-84 Jae'Sean Tate - 14 1-Mar vs Cleveland L 101-90 John Wall - 32 3-Mar vs Brooklyn L 132-114 John Wall - 36 11-Mar at Sacramento L 125-105 Victor Oladipo - 23 1...

Here's your current Men's ATP and Women's WTA rankings with the Top Ten overall and Top Ten Americans for each. As you can see from the tables below, American women are fairing far better than American men right now as the U.S. has no men in the Top 10 and only three men in the Top 50, while the U.S. women are represented by Sofia Kenin at #4, Serena Williams at #7 and nine others in the Top 50.  Side note, how crazy is it that 39 year olds Roger Federer and Serena Williams are both still so dominant? Men's Tennis ATP Rankings (2021) Points 1. Novak Djokovic (Serbia) 12,030 2. Rafael Nadal (Spain) 9,850 3. Daniil Medvedev (Russia) 9,735 4. Dominic Thiem (Austria) 9,125 5. Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece) 6,660 6. Roger Federer (Switzerland) 6,630 7. Alexander Zverev (Germany) 5,615 8. Andrey Rublev (Russia) 5,019 9. Diego Schwartzman (Argentina) 3,640 10. Matteo Berrettini (Italy) 3,480 Top Ten Americans (ATP Rankings) Points 26. John Isner 1,895 33. Taylor Fritz 1,695 39. R...

Check out this image from the Mars Perseverance Rover. You can barely make out the mountains in the background.    Image Source: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/

Yesterday was my 40th birthday. It was ok as far as 40th birthdays go given that we're still in the midst of a global pandemic. I had a good day at work, my boss bought me a coffee, I got new Legos, I got a new Astros hat, I got my wife's homemade pizza for dinner, and I got a cake that my kids were good enough to decorate for me (LOTS of frosting)... It was a good day. And today, we announced on facebook that our fourth child, and our first daughter, will be due in July. So lots going on here. But I miss writing, and making lists, so once again, we're going to give the whole blogging thing a shot. Being a working parent, and father of three (soon to be four), it's hard to make time, but we'll see what I can do.  So without further ado, here goes like my 19th attempt at starting a blog.