In The Big Inning...

I really do think optimism is an endearing trait. I consider myself an optimist in general, but not the point of delirium. False optimism basically just makes people irritating, but realistic optimism I think is critical for a happy life. Otherwise, you just become a miserable, grumbly fuck.

For some reason, though, I find excessive optimism with respect to sports incredibly grating. And honestly, that's where it's the most prolific and the least warranted. One of the simplest examples can be found if you go to a baseball game. Someone hits a routine pop-up to the outfield, and half the fans stand up and get excited. Then the ball settles into the left-fielder's glove without him moving an inch, and they all sit back down deflated. C'mon, people! You sound like idiots when you cheer pop flys. I know if I was a player, I'd get quite annoyed at my home town fans cheering when I know I screwed up. It's the worst in Boston. But on the other hand, maybe it's warranted because routine pop flys do go out of that ridiculously-dimensioned stadium.

Sports is a haven for deluded fans. It's so easy to be sucked into the hype. And I do understand the power of positive thinking, and building hype for a team in order to encourage them. But at some point, you have to be realistic. Otherwise, you get into a situation like Boston, before last year, or the Cubs for seeming eternity, where year after year after year, you get set up for disappointment. Of course, while I was in Boston, they never learned their lesson. Every year was going to be their year. I guess it's part of the obsession, but it's also a good way to develop some sort of mental complex.

It really bugs me when people conflate unfounded optimism with legitimate team support. People assume that if you're a fan, you have to be completely unreasonable a team's chances. As if admitting that a team has flaws somehow makes you less of a fan. In fact, since it's completely absurd that anything you do as a fan actually affects the team anyways (aside from maybe the money that you give them), as long as most fans are living in a fantasy world in which the team's owners listen to their suggestions, why wouldn't being critical actually help the team? Maybe the owners will listen to the criticism instead of just be happy with the team because of the fawning masses?

Still, I understand some of the enthusiasm, although I'd like it to be a little tempered. But probably the most misplaced enthusiasm comes with regards to the attitudes of certain players. I'm not one who heaps scorn on athletes - I actually think most are hard-working, talented individuals who deserve most of the money they get, at least from a business perspective. And among athletes, many do have a legitimate love of the sport and a sense of honor and dedication to their teammates and to the fans, which I respect. Sure, they're getting tons of money, but they're also generating loads of revenue for the team. Compare that to CEOs that make tens of millions of dollars a year for playing golf and smoking cigars. For the most part, I actually buy the reasoning that they're in a world in which money equals respect, and so I can also understand the requests for outlandish contracts. If the owners pay them, they why shouldn't the players ask?

The above only applies to hard-working, dedicated athletes. I'm sick of selfish, greedy players who don't take care of themselves, take plays off, or are just complete assholes off the field. Part of being an athlete is being a public figure, and being a good teammate, as well as being a good player. If you can't fulfill all of your obligations to your team, then you don't deserve those enormous sums of money. But one reason that you see players getting away with murder (sometimes literally), is because the fans don't demand accountability.

Because fans are eternal optimists, they tend to believe that talented players with poor track records off the field will somehow change their entire being once they change teams. Instead of protesting when a talented, but obnoxious and divisive player it signed, they cheer the player on and talk about how that player is the final piece of the championship puzzle. All too often, they're wrong. They're usually a honeymoon period, but it wears off quickly.

Let me give you some examples: Terrell Owens in Philly is the perfect case. He might be the best wide receiver in football right now, in terms of pure talent. But he's a pretty reprehensible human being, and certainly not a good teammate. In San Francisco, Owens was a fantastic player, but an incredibly divisive teammates. Aside from his ridiculous on-field antics (posing on the 50-yard line start in Dallas, the Sharpie incident), he mocked QB Jeff Garcia and implied that he was gay, repeated got into fights with coaches, etc. Then, he got traded to the Ravens, but realized he didn't want to go there, so he kicked and screamed and they traded him to the Eagles, or voided his contract - I forget which.

Eagles fans were all aflutter (ha!), thinking this was the missing piece to their championship run, and they were almost right. He got hurt, but came back to play in the Super Bowl, which they lost. Now he's insulting QB Donovan McNabb, and insisting he wants to renegotiate his $49 million, 7-year contract. Philly fans who welcome this self-centered egomaniac with open arms shouldn't be surprised at all. He hasn't changed a bit, and there's no reason to expect he would when people keep requesting his services. I'm enough of an optimist to believe that people CAN change, but not where there's no incentive to do so. T.O. acts like a jackass, but because teammates and owners and fans keep making excuses for him due to his extraordinary football talent, he doesn't change a bit. Ultimately, it comes back to bite everyone in the butt.

T.O.'s a great example on a large scale, but there are tons of small examples. Take David Wells, for instance. He's fat and loudmouthed, and also a very good pitcher. In the 2003 World Series, he was playing for the Yankees, and had to come out of Game 5 because of back problems. Just prior to that, he had been talking in a press conference about how he never stretches or does any of that nonsense. The irony was perfect. The Yanks lost that game, and the next one, to lose the Series. Then, this year, all of a sudden, this lazy bastard who had pissed off the Red Sox for years and years was signed to a contract at the age of 42. Bostonians thought that he just might be a solid replacement for Pedro Martinez, or at least Derek Lowe. Well, shortly after the season started, he got hurt, and was put on the shelf for a month. Last week, he came back to pitch, after refusing a rehab start, and got shelled, pitching less than two innings. Once a selfish, lazy asshole, always a selfish, lazy asshole.

Kevin Brown, noted jerk, punches a wall last year in the middle of a pennant race, and ends up basically ruining his season. Randy Moss, talented thug, admits that he takes plays off from time to time, and goes from Minnesota to Oakland. I'm sure Raiders fans are excited - they should be pissed off, and they will be as soon as he does something extremely stupid next season. The Orioles trade for shameless self-promoter and violent sneezer Sammy Sosa, and hey, he's out for a few weeks already! He hasn't spoken out yet, but you can be sure as soon as the O's start losing, or he stops hitting well and needs to be moved from the cleanup spot, he'll open his big fat mouth.

Some people are just immature and need a chance to grow up. But these guys can no longer use that as an excuse. They're just dicks, plain and simple, albeit talented dicks. And as long as fans are willing to overlook their lack of character because of their surplus of physical talent, they'll be setting themselves up for disappointment. Treat your team as you would treat your children, and give them a little tough love, and maybe they'll reward you with a championship.

I present this tidbit of information as a service to the entire citizenry: If you have the opportunity to drink Jones Soda Company's Blue Bubblegum soda, do not. If you doubt such a product exists, go here and look in the middle of the page. I think you'll find that of all the flavors, that's the most wretched sounding.

Actually, at the time, I thought it sounded like it could be good. I honestly have no clue what was going on in my head. Maybe I mistook it for another flavor. Maybe I liked the pretty blue color. (Even though blue is the international "do not ingest" color. I assume blueberries were shocked to discover their defense mechanism of being blue didn't work.) At any rate, even if you're curious about the flavor, I urge you to heed my warning, and spare yourself. There's enough suffering in this world already.

I'm now going on my eighth month of wedding planning, with about twelve more in sight. (In fact, this past Friday was our negative first wedding anniversary.) One of the reasons we decided to wait between the engagement and the wedding was to allow us time to enjoy planning what should be a fun and celebratory event. Personally, I've heard way too many stories of couples besieged by overwhelming requirements, and are therefore rendered unable to enjoy the wedding itself. When you're so tightly wound, and you've put so much effort into an event, it's tough to just relax and enjoy it.

Our plan has worked reasonably well so far. Getting married in the DC area is kind of crazy in and of itself. We booked our site approximately a year-and-a-half ahead of time, and the exact date we wanted was STILL unavailable. It wasn't a big deal - we just chose the previous weekend, but just think about that - a year-and-a-half ahead of time. So it's pretty good that we started planning that early. Basically, the area's population is growing, but the number of wedding sites really isn't.

In fact, I can't even imagine what it's like to plan a wedding in something like eight months, which should seem like a reasonable amount of time. But there's just too much to do. It's been nice to take a month or two to work on one project (say, finding a deejay), and then the next month to work on another (photographer). Each project requires finding vendors, meeting with them, and then evaluating them. Most of the time, they're busy on the weekends (doing weddings, obviously), so we either need to meet with them after work, or get squeezed into their weekend schedule. It means that each task gets spaced out over a few weeks.

By the way, we're not really wedding traditionalists. Our main concern is that it's a fun event. That's it. We want our family and friends to be there, and have a good time, and celebrate with us. It doesn't need to be picture-perfect, although I will say that we're both interested in having things be a little original, because we feel that adds to the fun component. But for the most part, I think we have our heads screwed on straight. I'm glad Sam does, because if she was a "Bridezilla", it would drive me up the wall. But then, I'm pretty sure I never would have proposed to anyone Bridezilla-like.

We've gotten the major tasks out of the way. Now we're at the more "decorative" tasks - in particular, cake, flower, and invitations. And we're hitting a slight wall. A little while ago, we picked our colors (blue and yellow) using paint chips from the Home Depot. We decided it would be prudent to do this after realizing we had absolutely no idea what we wanted things to look like, and also after every single person we talked to asked us what our "wedding colors" were. So we figured we should pick some.

The problem with our current tasks is that most vendors are used to very traditional styles. And so what that means is basically you make an appointment with, say, a place that does cakes, and you go in, and they sit you in front of a book of cakes they've done in the past, and you apparently are supposed to select one. If you're lucky, you get to taste the cake, but we've pretty much realized that as long as the cake doesn't make you retch, it's probably ok. Tell me you remember the taste of the wedding cake at a recent wedding cake you attended. Didn't think so.

So we sit there looking at wedding cake books. And they all blur together. They're almost all white, and almost all very floral and elaborate. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not what we're looking for. We tell vendors that, and often they give us a blank stare, or they give us a book of "wacky" cakes that are crooked, or are plaid, or shaped like ducks, or whatever. Not very helpful.

It's the same way with invitations. You got to a store, and they plop you in front of a ton of books. In some ways, invitations are even worse: Many look very similar, with minor tweaks. They're almost all white, and usually quite formal. But there are so many options with invitations! Why be so fuddy-duddy? I think people seem to have a very narrow picture in their minds of what weddings "should" look like. And we're not aiming for anything crazy - just a little more color, and a little more interesting design.

So my idea for a good business opportunity is a place that does custom wedding-related designs. I know they have wedding coordinators, and it's becoming more and more obvious to me why people would hire a person. Originally, it seemed too extravagant, but there are many details that would be nice not to deal with. Of course, then you don't get as much aesthetic control. But what I'm really looking for is a vendor to not just show me a gigantic book of designs, but to sit down with us and listen to what we want. Present suggestions and ask us questions. It really wouldn't be that hard.

You can take this idea even further. I think they should use CAD to design cakes, and PhotoShop for invitations. Let's bring this industry into the 20th century. (I'd say 21st, but they're clearly stuck in the 19th, and you can only move so far at a time.) It sounds silly, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. They have to make 3-D models of cakes now anyways, and so they use styrofoam and other arts and crafts, but even that's time-consuming. Furthermore, they don't do "proofs" of cakes - they just use the 3-D model for the shape, not the color or design. Maybe CAD's a little rough around the edges - so someone (not me) should make simple, cheap cake-designing software that would render a digital cake model. A good baker would work with the couple to design a cake that's just right for them.

Invitations lend themselves to this idea as well, especially because there are so many variables. Frankly, I don't know what's more frustrating - cakes because there are so many boring, overly-floral ones out there, or invitations because there are just way too many options. Paper type, paper color, size, shape, font, inserts, envelopes, art, folding style, it's just insane. We actually managed to find one place that was willing to sit down with us and work through those details, but it wasn't easy. Still, we have no real idea what our invitation will look like - a computer program would make things so much easier. They obviously have software already for designing printed materials, so invitation companies would just have to customize one so that it was specific to their particular offerings.

So, there you go. That's my brilliant business idea. I did the hard part, which was coming up with the idea. Now, you can go and run with it and get rich. My only request is that you get started really soon, and take us on as your first clients.

So, we're doing it. We're buying a house. I know the phrase "taking the plunge" is usually referred to getting married, but if you read my blog, then you already know we're doing that. And, honestly, this feels a bit more scary, even though I won't own this house for the rest of my life, I KNOW I want to marry Sam. Unless she somehow snaps and tries to kill me, I don't see it really being that much of a risk. And while I'm pretty darn confident that this house is going to turn out well (if I wasn't, I wouldn't be doing it, duh.), it's still hundreds of thousands of dollars we're talking about.

It really was quite a whirlwind experience. I didn't expect we'd have a house until July, because our lease is up in August. But we found something we liked, and in this market you just have to go for it, so we did. When we wrote our offer, we wanted it to be competitive, which these days basically means doing whatever the sellers might conceivably want. We didn't want to get the house without an inspection though, so we did a "pre-offer inspection", where we had an inspection done before actually submitting the offer. That was on Tuesday and went very smoothly. We submitted the offer with an "escalation clause", which basically functions like a bid on eBay does - it says that you're willing to go up to a certain amount, but only to beat another offer. We also wrote a cutesy little note telling the owners how excited we were at the prospect of starting out family in the house. Sounds like crap, eh? Well, it worked.

That afternoon, our realtor (Shelley, who has been fabulous), called me at work and said that there was one other competitive offer on the house, from someone who had beat our offer by $13,000, and was willing to put 25% down. (We were putting 5% down.) But, because the owners liked us, and knew that we had a good lender, they were willing to go with us if we upped our offer by $3,000. So, after a bit of thought, we did, and got the house. It was pretty exciting. We went from searching all day on Sunday to having our offer accepted on Tuesday. I still don't think it's completely sunk in that we're going to be homeowners. I feel so grown up! (Don't worry; I'll still make stupid jokes.)

Despite Shear's comments on my previous post, I do think it'll be a good investment. Yes, it's a risk. Yes, rates could skyrocket. But honestly, it's not that aspect I'm concerned about. As I told Shear, even if you could guarantee me that the price was going to go down 10-20% in the next few years, we'd probably still go for it. The timing's right, the house is nice, and we're not buying it because it's a good investment. (Although, it would be nice if it was.) And while it's true that in a few years, it's possible (likely? no one knows.) that the market will fall, and we will end up having overpaid for our house, as long as we can afford it now, we're ok. If our house loses value, I won't be too concerned, because I'd really only use the equity to buy another house. In fact, it's kind of interesting what's driving the market: Apparently, because of skyrocketing prices, people can't afford to move from their "starter homes" to their second homes, so they're just staying put and doing renovations. Because of that, there are fewer starter homes on the market, and therefore the prices on those just keep going up. My guess is that if the market slows, it'll be on those second homes, but what do I know? At any rate, there's some interesting information on it all here.

So, why am I nervous? Well, it's just a big deal. I've never owned a home before, and while I don't consider myself that handy, I do know how to read. But I don't know anything about water heaters and landscaping and drainage and roofing and all sorts of other crap. I won't mind learning, but it's going to be time-consuming at the least. And if I screw it up, it's not like I'm just going to move out - I'll permanently damage my home! In today's market, that'll be like $50K if I break a faucet!

There's the time factor, but there's also the money factor. We're actually choosing this house because it's pretty live-able already - all of the changes we'd want to make are either aesthetic (and not the absolutely necessary aesthetic ones, like if we had to cope with orange and green wallpaper), or "nice-to-haves". For instance, we'd really like to put a deck on the back, and an island in the center of the kitchen, and recessed lighting in the basement. But that's going to add up too. And that's not even counting all of the new furniture we're going to need just to fill up the place.

I guess I'm intimidated by all the potential there. We're buying what I think is a very nice house, and I want to make sure that we decorate it in a manner that's appropriate to the quality of the house. It may sound like a silly concern, but it's important to me that the house looks nice and clean and inviting. Sam and I basically own a collection of hand-me-down furniture and random items. We've never had to make rooms go together, and so that's going to be an interesting project for us. I guess we'll likely be making a lot of IKEA and Home Depot trips, although I'm betting that can get pretty expensive very quickly. Still, it should be fun to work on.

At any rate, I'm excited and apprehensive all at the same time. We're closing in a month, and since our landlords are being nice enough to let us out of the lease as soon as they find a replacement for us, I'm betting that we're going to move very shortly after that. And if you think my blogging's becoming infrequent now, just wait until I'm spending every weekend spreading mulch around our azaleas.

I recently reduced my posting to about once a week, for a number of reasons. I suppose if I was a little more motivated (or had more to say), then I would post more often. Still, I like writing, and want to stay disciplined. So, I think it's important to at least stick to once a week, but this weekend's made it a bit impossible. We basically spent the entire weekend hunting.

Initially, I assumed that we'd have a busy Friday and Saturday, but a relaxing Sunday. Friday we saw "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", although because we got screwed by Mapquest (Heaven only knows why we didn't use Google Maps), we ended up driving all over Virginia hunting for the movie theater, and seeing a later movie without the friends we had driven into Virginia to meet in the first place. The movie was just ok. Read the book instead.

Saturday, we participated in Sam's cousin Max's Scavenger Hunt for his organization Kid Power. It was a lot of fun, but was definitely hectic. We made it downtown just in time for the beginning of the hunt, and then drove all over creation for the next four hours, actually finding the items on the list. It was a ton of fun, but was exhausting. We didn't win, either.

During the hunt, we barely had time to eat, so when it was over, we were starving. We walked around trying to find a place to eat, and ended up close to the MCI Center, where the Bulls vs. Wizards playoff game had just gotten out. So, all the restaurants were completely full, and we ended up eating at some sort of fast food BBQ place. But at least we didn't die from starvation.

Today we thought we'd have a relaxing day. We were going to go to the gym, run a couple of errands, and maybe look at a couple of open houses. It was going to be a relaxing Sunday compared to the past two Sundays, where we went on "house tours" and spend a few hours looking for a house to buy. This time, we just thought we were going to go to one open house that we were aware of. But then, when we returned from the gym, our realtor had sent us links about eight open houses. We wrote down the addresses of about five of them that we were interested, and headed out.

Basically, for the next 10 hours, we ended up driving around. And we didn't even go anywhere! I'd say we stayed within a 10 mile circle. We went to three open houses in Kensington. Didn't really like anything. Then we headed to an open house in Chevy Chase. Didn't like it. Then we headed to Silver Spring to look at a house we had seen previously, but was still on the market. We felt like we didn't know Silver Spring well (And before you ask if I'm from Silver Spring, the answer is yes, but that Silver Spring isn't a city - rather, it's everything in Montgomery County that isn't in another city, so it's gigantic), so we drove around trying to get a feel of where the house was, where the stores were, where the subway was, etc.

Finally, after driving in what felt like six gigantic circles, we were ready to go to run our errands. On our way, we ended up passing a cross street that we had originally thought was too far away, and so we had ignored that open house. We figured what the hell, and went to the open house, and ended up really liking the house. They wanted contracts by Tuesday, so we called our realtor, Shelley, and left a message. Then we went on to our errands.

Let me make a small aside about house hunting. Apparently, the market is crazy right now, and has been for a couple years, especially in the DC area. I saw "apparently" because I've never looked for a house before, but everything tells me that it wasn't always like this, where "this" means basically if you want a house, you have to present the seller with a contract that basically allows them to take five pints of blood from you if they want. Houses are going on the market and getting 10-20 contract put on them over a weekend. Prices have doubled or tripled in the past 2-3 years. It's just nuts. Some people think the bubble will burst, but aside from the dollar collapsing (don't laugh - that's closer than you think), I don't see why. They're not building any new houses, but people are still breeding. They're still moving into DC, too, as the government expands under one-party rule. So I figure we're safe on that front. That's if we can find enough blood to obtain a house. Maybe we'll promise our first-born child, just to get a leg up on the other buyers.

So, back to the task at hand. As we were running our errands, our realtor called back and told us that she couldn't meet tomorrow, but was available at 6:45. (It was 5:00 at this time. We left the house around noon.) So we finished up our errands and went to meet Shelley. It turned out that writing an offer is much more time-consuming that we originally thought. I figured we'd be out of there by 8. I am a fool.

I suppose in some cultures, signing papers could be considered "relaxing" - maybe even "romantic". But not in this one! Actually, our realtor is great, and explained everything to us - but that, of course, takes time. So we understood what we were offering, and signed every last piece of paper, had our blood drawn and hermetically sealed and placed in a cooler which the lending back will keep in escrow.

We finally got home at 10 pm. It was a long day. It's fortunate that one of our errands was stopping at the grocery store, otherwise we would have had to continue our hunt by trying to shoot some deer in our backyard for dinner. Instead, we finally made dinner and ate at 11. It's 12:40, and I have absolutely no idea why I'm writing instead of sleeping or in some sort of coma.

We find out on Tuesday if they offer's been accepted. If not, the hunt continues...