Monday Monday, Can’t trust that day.

The weekend was busy, and it started off on Friday afternoon. After leaving early (love half-day Fridays!), I headed over to a local watering hole to watch the pitifulness that was the England/Algeria match. The 0-0 draw was probably the best possible result for the US, but it made for pretty boring viewing. After the game Sage picked me up and we headed to Fenway to watch the Sox take on the Dodgers. Oh yeah, it also included a homecoming for some guy named Manny as well. We lucked out with a free parking spot along Wheelock College (the third time we’ve lucked out at games this year!), and had dinner in Kenmore Square before heading into Fenway. Our seats weren’t bad, but not great. Grandstand , just past first base, about 6 rows from the top. The view of the field was good, but Sage had to lean into me to see home plate.

Manny, unknown Dodger, Beltre and Papi meet up before the game

The view from our seats...pretty nice most of the time...

...Except when you wanted to see home plate.

Manny came up to start the 2nd inning, and I thought it was about 60% cheers/40% boos. I cheered for him loudly, as I know he quit on the team in 2008, but I really don’t think the Sox would have won either in 2004 or 2007 without him. Also, I just can’t help but love the guy…he’s just so goofy. Papi, Drew and Beltre all hit home runs, and the Sox came away with a scrappy 10-6 win.

The next morning (Saturday) I was up before 5:00 am, and headed out toward Springfield for a round of golf. My friend Adam and I played at The Ranch, one of the top 10 courses in Massachusetts, and according to Golf Digest, one of the top 50 public courses in the country. We had an early tee time and it’s a long drive out there, which was the cause of the early morning. The Ranch was fantastic: Immaculate greens and fairways, very interesting layout, and all the holes were fun to play. My stats for the day were not good: Shot a 101 from the Blues (6,578 yards), 8/14 FIR, 2/18 GIR, 37 putts, 4 3-putts. All of a sudden my driving is as inconsistent as Malian referees, and I really have fallen on bad times since my great mid-May round. Even so, the round was less than 4 hours (thanks to the foursome that let us play through on the 3rd hole), and it really was a great time.

After bidding Adam adieu, I headed farther west toward New York. I had tickets to the Phish show at Saratoga that night, and planned on camping out nearby after the show. First, I found a great spot in a State Forest only 25 miles from Saratoga that looked ideal for me: Very isolated, on a meadow, and seemingly quiet. I then headed to Saratoga Spa State Park, where the Saratoga Performing Arts Center is. The park is beautiful, and not what I imagined. It has plenty of historic buildings, and has a lot of nature trails and natural springs. It would be a nice place to visit again someday.

After the show I jumped in my car and was able to get ahead of traffic. It wasn’t as late as I thought it would be, and before heading back to my planned camp site, I put “Home” into the GPS and saw that it would only be about 3 hours to sleep in my own bed. With no traffic ahead of me and not feeling tired, I figured I’d take the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. I made it home around 2 am, the perfect time to wake Sage up with a glowstick.

There was one thing and one thing only on the to-do list for Sunday: TOY STORY 3! Sage and I have been waiting for this event all year, as we both love the Toy Story movies. We had a couple of options to see it, one being at the Imax at Jordan’s Furniture around the corner from us. Unfortunately they had sold out the 11 am show (and for the next 2 shows too!), so we headed to the local AMC instead. We decided to watch the 3-D version, as we hadn’t tried out this brand-new craze yet. (Yes, we missed Avatar in the theater. But having seen it at home, there is no amount of 3-D chicanery that could have saved that stupid story.) First, my thoughts on 3-D. They showed plenty of trailers before the movie, most of them promoting future 3-D movies, and my reaction was that the live-action films looked REALLY cool with the 3-D. The animated ones didn’t look as impressive, and I felt the same way during the movie itself. It seems with the computer animation now they can put so much depth and texture into the film already, the 3-D didn’t really add all that much. Also, I got Lasik surgery for the sole reason that I wouldn’t have to wear glasses again. So that part annoys me as well.

As for the movie itself, I can only say…it’s fantastic. I’m not so sure it’s the best of the 3, but we’d really be splitting hairs to try to label one as the best or one as the worst. And the last 10 minutes? Well, if you don’t have tears in your eyes you must have a granite boulder for a heart. A great ending to a great series.

Since I wasn’t around much this weekend, I don’t have much of a garden update. There isn’t anything exciting going on anyway, except that I have some sort of blight or scorching going on with my tomatoes. Most of them have branches/leaves that turn from yellow to black and then shrivel up and die. I went around this weekend and lopped off all the affected branches, but I’m sure it’ll keep spreading. I’m not 100% sure what it might be. Based on my internet research it sounds that I have Septoria Leaf Spot or Early Blight. I understand that these are airborne fungal diseases that require dew or rain to infect the plants. This is possible, as the past couple of weeks has been pretty wet. Sounds like my plants this year are pretty much SOL, and the main suggestion is to rotate the plants in subsequent years and mulch the base pretty heavily. I’ll have to get some grass/leaf clippings and see if that will help.

Oh, I guess I need a weight update. My goal this morning was 211.8, and I was at 212.0, so I dropped a pound last week. Still on target, as Sluggy would say.