With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 19, 2009 - 12:30 p.m.
I was thinking earlier that I don't make it a mania to update every day; if there is time to update I will but I don't make time for it. I would like to leave the house in an hour and I haven't showered yet. It often takes me nearly an hour to update so I don't have time. What am I doing now?
I didn't write much about it in advance but I had a houseguest last night. Lawrence came to see the Mets-Nationals game with me. He's from the Virginia suburbs of D.C.. I get out of school at 2:15 and it takes me about an hour to get home. I told Lawrence to be here at 3:30 so timing could theoretically be tight. I wasn't worried. The subway was far less likely to have a major delay than he would have one driving. He was coming down from Boston where he went to a game at Fenway Park. He hit traffic by the Whitestone Bridge so I got home long before he did.
We bought the tickets on Stub Hub for less than face value and they came with prepaid parking. I haven't driven to a game in years but as we already paid for it and we intended on getting there very early so he could explore Citi Field for the first time we drove. Parking costs $18. You can see why take the bus and subway.
When we got there I actually saw something that I hadn't seen before though I know it's there. In the parking lot, on the site of the infield of Shea, there are plaques on the ground indicating the positions of home, the bases, and the pitching rubber, or as the plaque says, the pitching plate. That is sort of cool and the type of homage to Mets history the team usually neglects.
We were so early there was no line at Shake Shack! It helped that it was Rosh Hashanah and the Mets are doing so poorly that the crowds are down. It is hard to get enthusiastic about a team whose season has been so disappointing. I'm not that upset because they've had so many injuries I'm willing to just write the season off as a fluke. They have real issues that need to be addressed such as the total lack of power. That isn't just injuries. It is partially the new park and partially a decision the team made to not try and hit home runs. What's the result? Just what every bit of research ever done shows. When you give up home runs to get more singles you score less runs.
I gave Lawrence the grand tour of the Citi Field. He was impressed. It does look great though as I always complain there is not enough about the Mets there. A bigger problem is that the security is very officious. They are very concerned that people stay in their own areas. They are terrified by the thought of people in the cheaper seats mingling with their betters.
Did I mention that we had pretty good seats so we were their betters? I got to explore the excelsior level for the first time and go to its club. You get a great view from there that is denied the rest of us.
Our seats were great, right below the press box. We had a magnificent view of the field. Foul territory at Citi is miniscule, that means the seats are far closer to the action than at most parks.
As for the game. The Mets are lousy but the Nats are even worse. The Mets had a real chance of winning the game. They didn't but they made it close. They lost 6-5 but the go ahead run was in scoring position when the game ended.
After the game we drove home. I had trouble parking but found a place by the high school. Good thing it's a weekend and parking is legal there today. When we got back we talked about baseball, bridge, politics and Moxy Früvous. Lawrence is a Frühead. That's how I met him many a moon ago, December 1999.
This morning Lawrence headed out to AC for some gambling and to say hi to Leah. I need to see Leah too. I miss Früheads.
Wow I wrote this very quickly. I might be able to post it, take my shower, move my car, and still get into the City as early as I'd like. I'm going to Madison Square Park to see Natalia Zuckerman and Woody Mann. Lori, not LORi will be there celebrating her birthday. She's a WFUV volunteer. She asked me for a cool venue to go to on her birthday and that's what I suggested.
Now I'm hitting the showers then I'm off to Madison Square Park.
Ace Kree - September 24, 2009
Ragin' Cajun - September 23, 2009
PIGS IN HADES - September 22, 2009
O Solo Maura - September 21, 2009
Love and Death - September 20, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 19, 2009
