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Early Sunday morning, I opened one eye and looked outside taking note of the gray and clouds. It was a great sleep in morning and I must have dozed back off. Next thing I knew, Mary was in the room. She had been jolted out of bed by a strong gust of wind from a thunderstorm that we found out later had passed a bit north of us. For a while we watched the TV weather looking to see if we would need to get into our hallway. Almost as quickly as it came up it settled down and the sun came out. We noticed that there was still time so we got ready and headed off to 10:30 mass. Once there we heard yet another wonderful homily from Father Artur as he explained the difference between a disciple and an apostle. While there, I discovered a phone mail from Kathi wishing her dad a Happy Father's Day. As we were leaving church, the Krajewskis showed up and we headed to breakfast at Blueberry Hill in Homer Glen and I returned Kathi's call while on the way.. I had mentioned once before that the food is good and this morning I had a hard choice between Strawberry-Banana Crepes and what I finally chose the Hillbilly Skillet. The Hillbilly consists of a base of home fries covered with your choice of melted cheese, in this case cheddar, your choice of eggs (scrambled) a few more potatoes and sausage gravy. Accompanied by a V8 and a buttered English Muffin it was very good. Of course we also consumed copious amounts of coffee. We spent a lazy Sunday afternoon watching the Cubs, (they won) and the Sox (they lost) interspersed with movies and design shows, also checking on the U.S. Open from time to time. Our last check was just in time to discover a tie and a playoff tomorrow.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
~ Helen Keller

Monday they played 18 additional holes. That was a total of 90 holes and still no clear cut winner. The U.S. Open is apparently the only tournament which uses a full round playoff. Some of the others use 4 holes and a few use "sudden death". In this case, we had a complete extra round and still no winner. The tie breaker in this case was sudden death and the progression of holes to be used was announced. Tiger Woods finally prevailed after one hole (the 91st) and limped off the course. We had watched him grimace in pain after each shot. After it was over we would learn that Tiger had played against the advice of his surgeon and that the injury was worse than was admitted. Actually there appears to be ligament damage and a stress fracture. In a great display of courage (maybe stupidity) he had told the surgeon that he would play and WIN. It apparently was at great cost as he is now shut down for the season to have surgery and rehab in time for the Masters next spring. Of course, sportswriters and media types are crying about the lost revenue because of the expected ratings sag that will occur. Speaking of whiners, major league baseball begged out of the Hall of Fame Game in Cooperstown as of this year citing difficulties in scheduling BULL!!! Too bad these overpaid and underworked babies can't give something back by playing an annual game in the town where the shrine of the game to which they all aspire to be elected. The Cubs, who were scheduled to play were particularly guilty. They cried about a 90 minute flight from Toronto (where they played Sunday) and a 90minute bus ride to Cooperstown. They made their own problem. Albany, N.Y. is the capital of the State of New York and certainly would have a major hotel chain outlet where they could have stayed Sunday night. The writers in Chicago said somthing about Lou Piniella missing an off day Monday with his children and grand children. NEWS!! We have thousands of my fellow brothers in Arms in IRAQ and around the world who have missed children for a long time, all to provide the CUBS and Piniella the opportunity to even earn an obscene income for playing a kid's game. It all turned out to be moot though as the game was rained out and the Cubs went on to Tampa. Since this was the last year that Major League Baseball will cooperate, the school kids in Cooperstown will lose the thousands of dollars in concession revenue on the day of the game.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Of course, the CUBS went on to Tampa and promptly lost. Must have been the grueling travel schedule. As far as the rest of today is concerned, I worked on this page and did my weekly duty updating the St Julie Bulletin.

Today (Wed) the St. Terrence bulletin arrived in my mailbox. I have mentioned before that I maintain the site, including information from the St. Terrence Men's Club Golf League. When I finished uploading the bulletin and looking over the site, I found the golf information in my mailbox. and proceeded to place it on the site.

While I was watching AM TV today (Thur.) I got a call from my dentist's office. We were waiting for a crown to come in. Two weeks ago tomorrow he did the preliminary work and placed a temporary crown. The appointment to install the permanent was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. However, when ordering he requested early delivery if possible. The call was to ask if I could come in at 1PM today, So, this afternoon, with great effort (he did too good a job) the temporary was removed and the permanent installed. This afternoon, I got an email from Glenn Beck. He is a talk show host and I subscribe to his newsletter. It mentions that without an beating around the bush that the Democrats openly are moving to nationalize the oil companies. They have been threatening to theoretically take them over by taxing "windfall profits". What is a windfall, who decides? Now, they blatantly propose socialism (just like Castro or better yet Chavez). If you would like to find out about him go to www.glennbeck.com.

Friday was an interesting day. I delivered the Post newsletter to the Commander who will then have it reproduced for distribution at the members meeting on Wednesday. Following some coffee and competition to tell the biggest lie (I was at a disadvantage being the last to arrive), it was off to Walgreens for some prescriptions and OTC pills (Advil) in anticipation of the Florida trip. Yes they have Walgreens in Florida but anything needed for the two plus day trip is helpful to have in hand. The to the gas station for some petrol (it is beginning to more resemble Europe day by day). Some have been saying we should not complain because Europe (my experience was in France and Italy) has been paying high prices for a long time. Yes, but from early on it has produced of walkers, bicyclists, mopeds and small cars. In France, a large segment of the population leaves it's car in the garage until August the traditional vacation month when industry shuts down.
Anyway I paid 4.28.9 ouch!!!. When I arrived home Mary had long since returned from her annual eye appointment blinded by the light on a cloudy but bright day. Friday night we joined our friends the Krajewski's for a last shot at what we think is the world's best pizza at Aurelios. T was particularly annoyed when we discovered that in the short few hours of Friday afternoon, the gas at the station I had been at earlier had dropped thee cents per gallon. In between, Friday afternoon I watched the cross-town classic and when the CUBS, who had been swept in Tampa went behind three to one fairly early, CUBS fans who had been waiting to see if this might be the infamous "June Swoon were soon pleased. Just that quickly the CUBS tied it at three. Ramirez, the first batter in the bottom of the ninth, hit a walk off homer and just that quickly the losing streak which had stood at three was over. All-in-all a pretty good day.