Things I Like

It’s Wednesday night and I’m feelin’ it alright…

Giants’ Baseball

My San Francisco Giants began the night with a Magic Number of 7. For those not familiar with MLB minutia, the Magic Number in this case is the total of Giants’ wins added to LA Dodgers’ losses. When the Magic Number reaches zero, the Division Title is secured. The Giant s are playing an inspired version of baseball this month .

It’s all too rare when the Giants and their arch rivals the LA Dodgers are battling down to the wire in September.

I like when Tony Bennett sings “I left My Heart” after a Giants home victory.

Tuesday night, Tim Lincecum pitched his best game of the season…he had command of all his “stuff” and had a quality start and tallied the win…and Tony Bennett sang.

Wednesday night, Matt Cain recorded his 15^th win and Tony Bennett sang.

When I was eleven years old, the Giants and Dodgers battled down to the last game. The pennant was decided by a playoff game…which the Giants won, sending them to the World Series vs the New York Yankees. My Dad pulled me out of school to attend Game 2 of the World Series at Candlestick Park where Yankees’ pitcher Whitey Ford humiliated the Giants’ batters with a 1-0 shutout.

49 years later, the game is so much deeper to me…exciting yes, but it’s so much richer to 60 year old me. Baseball has entered it’s second “Golden Age”. Most teams have built new, smaller, stadiums. Dodger Stadium built in 1962 is the third oldest park in the majors after Boston’s Fenway Park and the Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field. These new more intimate parks really showcase the National Pastime to today’s fans.

Broken Stuff

All my life it seems like my stuff breaks all at the same time. Flurries of failures…It’s not just the new camera that needs do go back for replacement. My trusty old document shredder finally gave up the ghost, and a pair of my summertime shoes, Merrill Jungle Mocs finally blew out. It’s time for a new Winter pair of Merrill Orbits too.

My Fellowes shredder is more than ten years old, but I finally fed it something that disagreed with it. I spent an hour or more with a bottle of shredder oil and some dental tools trying to make it happy again…FAIL

I hit the internet and looked at new ones. I was prepared to spend around $80 or so, when I decided just to go to Reno and do some hands-on research. Office Depot, COSTCO, and REI are all on the same street, so I hit REI for some new Jungle Mocs before perusing the shredders at Office Depot.

There were no $80 Fellowes machines at Office Depot. The in-store prices were 25% higher than their online prices, and the $129 model was too wimpy for this shopper.

Next door at COSTCO, they had one Fellowes shredder. This one does 12 sheets at a time and eats credit cards and CDs! $99-SOLD! I grabbed a bale of toilet paper, and trolled the SD Cards and there was a $5 Off deal on the pair of 16GB cards I put off last time I was there…WIN!

I got home and assembled the new machine before the Giants-Rockies game. I fed it the first hank of credit card come-ons, and was surprised at how quiet the thing was! No grinding sound, just a firm steady whir…the loudest noise was paper crinkling when the paper ran up against one side of the feed slot!

The best thing? You don’t even have to open the junk mail! This thing eats anything! I read the instructions to find out one thing: How often do I oil it? It says oil it each time you empty the waste bin.

I shredded away during the ballgame, ripping through a year’s worth of junk mail backlog, and oiled four times. The authoritative whir of this machine is almost comforting!

This was an awesome buy all around! Amazon's price is $122.49 I win.

Giants magic number now 5. Giants at AT&T Park today at 12:45PM