Luke’s Notebook

Today, the family drove in to nearby Penn Yan and walked the Keuka Outlet Trail, which connects two of the finger lakes, Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake. Along the couple of miles we walked on the trail, we saw two very pretty waterfalls. It happened to be a gorgeous day. It must have hit near 70 degrees this afternoon; it was that pretty! Tomorrow, we plan to visit Letchworth State Park. Tomorrow is also Caleb’s eighth birthday, and Mom and Dad are taking him out to breakfast in the morning.

Paul and John returned home late last night, and today I spent a couple of hours on the phone with them, trying to troubleshoot our Internet connection. They couldn’t get online, and I was doing my best to help give them ideas on how to get back online. They finally got it working, but it’s still a mystery as to what happened. We used to connect through PPPoE — and it looked like all was working just fine — but for some reason they couldn’t get online, couldn’t ping websites, or anything like that! When they manually punched in a static IP address into the router, that did the trick.

So… who knows what changed, but at least they’re online now. Now the only challenge will be to iron things out as soon as we get home, because right now I don’t think webcasts would work. So we’ll see how that works out. Hopefully our ISP is able to help us figure out what’s going on. Worst-case scenario, we’ll just have to wait a bit to resume the webcasts. We’ve had a three-week hiatus already, so a few more days wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It’d just be nice to get things back to normal!

Early this morning, Paul and John left our house here in New York and started their drive back home to Illinois. There are some depositions over the next few days that need covering, so they’re heading back early, and the rest of the family will probably be a few days behind.

This afternoon, we all drove up to Watkins Glen State Park, which is a home to some 16 or 17 waterfalls in this giant gorge, and you walk up some 836 stairs on a one-and-a-half-mile trail, and you get very close to some of the falls and even walk behind a few of them on the trail! We visited it four years ago as a family, so it was pretty nice to see it again. There’s a lot of beauty there!

Well, today is October 30th. We’re two days away from Caleb’s eighth birthday, we’re less than two months from Christmas, and just over two months away from New Year’s! That’s really hard to believe, that this year is coming to an end. It has been a really interesting year; quite an adventure! You can only wonder what God may have planned for 2007. Whatever is on His agenda, it should make for an interesting time.

Proverbs 3:21-23

My son, let not these slip out of your sight; keep advice and counsel in view; so will they be life to your soul, and an adornment for your neck. Then you may securely go your way; your foot will never stumble.

Proverbs 12:1

He who loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs 12:15

The way of the fool seems right in his own eyes, but he who listens to advice is wise.

Proverbs 13:1

A wise son loves correction, but the senseless one heeds no rebuke.

On August 26th, 2006, Adam Wainwright joined his teammate Jeff Suppan in a home run derby at the Softball Classic. Two months and one day later, Wainwright threw the last pitch of the Major Leagues, a curveball that struck out the Tigers’ Brandon Inge and gave the Cardinals Game Five and, ultimately, the World Series.

It’s amazing that the Cardinals have won! They barely made it into the playoffs, and now they’re World Series champs! Jeff Weaver pitched a great game, and the Cards capitalized on some more errors by Detroit. It’s incredible, but the Tigers had two more errors last night and two more passed balls! The errors looked like reruns; Brandon Inge had a wild throw to Sean Casey at first base, and Justin Verlander threw another ball wide of Inge at third. Both errors were very key, and the Cardinals capitalized on the mistakes.

All in all, the Tigers had eight errors in five games! That’s not even counting the mistakes by the outfielders and the four passed balls by Detroit pitching. The Cardinals, who made some mistakes themselves, managed to minimize the damage on their miscues (with the exception of Sean Casey’s two-run homer in Game Five following Chris Duncan’s error in right) and exploited the Tigers’ defensive problems.

They figured out that, for whatever reason, Tiger pitchers were having problems fielding and throwing the ball. So the smart Cardinals exploited that, and dropped down some bunts, forcing the pitchers to make a play. This series, the Cardinals were simply the better team.

So ends the 2006 campaign. It started off at the Cardinals Care Winter Warm-Up at January. From there, we went down to Jupiter, Florida, for the Cards’ spring training activities. And then there was the season and all of the excitement, all the great players we got to know, such as Wainwright, Suppan, John Rodriguez, and countless others.

It was a fun year! What a note to go out on.

I love the Cardinals, so I am ecstatic that they’re up 3-1 in the World Series over the Tigers. I like the Tigers, though, so for their sake, I am saddened by the way they have been playing in the field! I mean, if anybody has seen the first four games, the defense of the Tigers looks like a three-ring circus act! You can’t help but feel sorry for them, with having so many costly defensive blunders.

In Game One, the Tigers had three errors, including two by third baseman Brandon Inge in the same play. Justin Verlander added the third one. Game Two, Tigers closer Todd Jones made an error. Game Three, Tigers flamethrower Joel Zumaya took a tailor-made double-play ball and launched it past Brandon Inge at third, letting the Cards score two. Here in Game Four, reliever Fernando Rodney took fielded a bunt from So Taguchi and threw it way above Placido Polanco, who was covering first base. Eckstein scored on that error.

That’s six errors in four games, and four of them were by pitchers! And then there was Craig Monroe’s near-catch in left field on David Eckstein’s double and Curtis Granderson’s barrel roll in center field, giving Eckstein a free double. Honestly, it’s amazing to watch. It’s sad, too, because the Tigers are practically gift-wrapping games for the Cardinals. I’m thrilled with the end result, but it’s just amazing to see so many errors, and more so, so many costly ones. There was also the wild pitch/passed ball which allowed Aaron Miles to move to second right before Eckstein’s go-ahead double off of Craig Monroe in left, which scored Miles.

Bottom line, though, is the Cardinals are one win away from becoming World Series champs. No matter how many errors the Tigers are making, you can’t take anything away from the way the Cardinals have played this series. They have been outstanding. Pitching has been great, and, boy, have they had some clutch hits. Even the little things like bunting. The Cardinals are playing some good baseball.

The series isn’t over yet, but it sure looks like the Cardinals are ready to take this thing. By the way, I was sad to see Wainwright give up that hit off of Brandon Inge to tie the game 4-4 in the eighth inning, but at least the blown save gave him a chance to get a win in the World Series. Good for Waino.

I was just curious — who out there uses the RSS feed for my blog? Firefox may refer to it as a Live Bookmark. Anybody out there subscribe to my RSS feed? If so, do you find it handy? Anything you would suggest I change?

Thanks again for sharing, you two. It’s great to hear your perspective. Again, this started out as a comment, but I’m making it an entry due to its length.

You know, Emily, I can totally see where you’re coming from, and I think that’s a very admirable approach, to not rely on makeup or anything that would take away from your authenticity. That’s the word to describe my thoughts, I guess: authenticity. I’m all for girls doing their best to look ladylike and take care of themselves, but not when it compromises their authenticity. Otherwise, you’re losing your uniqueness and just basically buying a new face.

Now that I think about it, I’d like to ask: So what if a girl doesn’t look like a model? Honestly, what good is it to turn heads? Do you want to have people flock to you just because you know the right makeup/lipstick/hairstyle/outfit combination? Would you really want 100 guys to be madly in love with you — or very attracted to you, anyway? If so, why? Which one of them are you going to marry? What about the rest of them? In the end, what good is it to have everyone look at you and marvel over how gorgeous you are?

Wouldn’t you rather them know you by what’s in your heart? Why is it that there is the desire (and guys feel this too, in their own way) to be the center of attention, to just be something so physically attractive to the opposite sex? I’ll tell you what… I’ll bet you that so much of this is a direct result of the media and the kind of pressure that girls and guys (girls more so, I believe) face to look like Hollywood is telling us that regular people look.

Ashley and Emily, I was going to reply to your comments but I figured I would just make a new post, since it was getting long. This might make things simpler. Thanks for your insight, by the way. I’d love to hear your (and anybody else’s) thoughts on this as well, as it’s more or less a reply.

There’s something refreshing about a girl being simple and not relying on all sorts of makeups, lipsticks, hair dyes, hairstyles, or dental gimmicks in order to achieve her look.

You guys know that I have nothing against a girl taking care of herself — in fact, in my book this is in no way a free pass for girls to just let themselves go and not try to do their best with what God has given them — but there are so many products or services out there that will help a girl completely transform her face into someone else. Aside from simple things to just complement a girl’s God-given beauty, there are so many options that make it easy to look like a totally different person.

I think a big problem is girls may think they’re the only one with imperfections or blemishes, so they reason that they’d better take advantage of all of these products just to maybe break even. Maybe enough makeup, enough lipstick, enough foundation, enough bleach for the teeth, enough hair dye — maybe, just maybe all that combined will make them semi-beautiful. At least enough to someway, somehow be attractive to a guy.

I could be way off, but I wonder if this is how a lot of girls tend to think these days, especially reacting to all of the picture-perfect models, actresses, and the like you’ll see in the media.

Wow.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1296103237

Talk about setting unrealistic standards for girls to match up with. And the sad thing is, I’m sure there are countless girls doing everything they can to look as close to that billboard as possible. How artificial they become.

This is really kind of sad…

This just in:

The Cardinals are going to win the World Series!

Okay, only four innings have been played, but I think I’m going to change my vote and choose the Cards to win the World Series. My thinking is because they have hit the Tigers’ ace (or one of them), Justin Verlander, very hard and are up 4-1 in the fifth. If they can win this thing, I honestly think they’ll win the Series.

Think about this: The Cards’ fourth starter, Anthony Reyes, having outpitched Verlander, at least up to this point, and the Cardinals still have their top three pitchers waiting for the next three games.

Obviously, four innings of one game is just a fraction of the entire series, but I think it speaks volumes that the Cardinals have hit Verlander, in Detroit. So… it has only been a few hours since I predicted the Tigers to take the World Series, but after watching the first few innings, the Cardinals just look like the better team, plain and simple.

And with Scott Rolen and Albert Pujols heating up tonight, that just makes their offense all the more frightening. The Tigers could come back and win this thing and end up sweeping the Series. Anything can happen, but if I were a Tigers fan I would be very, very afraid right now. And, as a Cardinals fan, I’m very, very optimistic.

So you may ignore my previous entry.