Yeah ... this will probably come out wrong

This post is not a rebel post ... this post is "Yeah ... this will probably come out wrong"

Fully appreciating the incongruity of feeling the need to "defend" a band that is drawing sixty to eighty thousand people a night to their shows, Dolberry would like to vent a little in general about the harsh reactions that U2 (and Bono, in particular) draws in some corners.  You, happy reader, are actually doing me a service here.  By venting in advance, I'll be able to avoid direct confrontation w/ any critics at the show tomorrow or afterwards.  I'll think to myself ... "Sir or Madam, you were seriously pwn3d on the DCV!" and walk away smugly.  That is how the passive-aggressive Dolberry rolls.  (Is there any other point to having a blog that only 6 people read?)

To be clear, I don't have a problem w/ people that don't like U2's music.  There's something mystical about the combination of poetry and rhythm that affects different people differently.  Dolberry personally cannot appreciate the aural value of scores of bands, singers, songs that others do.  (I'm looking at you again here ABBA.)  There are some frequently cited complaints about U2 that I think are illogical and seek to counter here.

1.  "U2 is too political.  Shut up and sing, Bono.":  OK, this one bothers me the most.  Excellent article here from Jim Wallis about his DC experience w/ U2 360.  In that link and elsewhere (comments in the WaPo review of the concert) there are accounts of people at the show yelling at Bono to shut up as he expounds (for less than 60-90 seconds, mind you) about poverty in Africa, political prisoners in Burma, protecting the environment, or praising Nancy Pelosi and George Bush for their efforts to improve the state of our world.  In my opinion, U2's politics are not particularly political.  Is anyone really FOR impoverished and starving Africans?  Is anyone really FOR maintaining multi-generational Protestant-Catholic grievances and the terrorism that follows?  Is anyone really AGAINST promoting freedom in Burma ... are there really big supporters for the Burmaese military junta here in the States?  If so, why?  Unfortunately, I think politics has gotten so partisan, spin-centered, and just flat-out screwed up that people reflexively turn away from things like this that simply sound political ...

2.  "Bono is a raving messianic megalomaniac.":  What part of "rock star" are you having a hard time following?  Your "egotistical madman" is my "charismatic leader".  Semantics, I guess.

3.  "U2 is going to hell ":  Someone at APD's school expressed alarmed concern to him yesterday that he was attending a U2 concert ... warning against "false prophets" and those that "use God's words for their personal gain".  Look as a professing Christian, I don't know if I'm Christian "enough" ... let alone judge other in the faith.  (Based on my own "righteous" anger I felt inside when I heard that an adult unloaded all this on a 12 year old yesterday ... I clearly have progress to make on emulating Jesus' example.)  My own personal opinion, based on Matthew 25, is that God favors the imperfect among us who do something about injustice, hunger, poverty, and truly loving our neighbors rather than the imperfect among us who are considered "righteous".  If one can show one's faith by one's deeds, I see a vibrant one in U2.

4.  "U2 are hypocrites.":  Typically this refrain goes "How can U2 lecture me on the environment when their tour emits 4 gazillion tons of CO2?  How can U2 lecutre me on poverty when they own a castle in France and a hilltop mansion along the Big Sur?"  News flash: nearly everyone is a hypocrite.  Don't we all have ideals that we may not always live up to?  Most of us are fortunate enough not to have these inconsistencies displayed on a worldwide screen.  Dolberry is certainly a hypocrite.  I claim to care about the poor and the hungry and the hopeless, but I own a big TV and a Playstation and I live in a comfort that numbs me from doing anything substantial about the plight of others.  I claim to care about the environment but for 2-3 years I drove around w/ a "smoker" (the Tercel) because I was too lazy/cheap to maintain it properly.  I plead guilty to these and scores of others where I say one thing ... but do another.  Be honest critics ... you too are hypocrites.  So, what is the resolution to this universal tendency toward hypocrisy ... well it can't be to stop trying to do the right thing ... to stop promoting the right thing.  We are an imperfect people but we still need leaders everywhere (also imperfect) to step up and show us the way to a better world. 

Bottom line: you don't have to like U2 ... some of us do ... Dolberry in particular ... if you don't like U2 for one of the four reasons above ... keep it to yourself when around Dolberry.  Thanks!  :-)

Am I bugging you?  I don't mean to bug you.

My guess at U2's set list in Raleigh

1. Breathe
2. Magnificent
3. Get on Your Boots
4. Beautiful Day
5. Elevation
6. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
7. No Line on the Horizon
8. My Blue Room
9. Unknown Caller
10. New Years Day (or Until the End of the World)
11. Stay
12. The Unforgettable Fire
13. City of Blinding Lights
14. Vertigo
15. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
16. Sunday Bloody Sunday
17. MLK
18. Walk On
19. One
20. Where the Streets Have No Name
21. Ultraviolet
22. With Or Without You
23. Moment of Surrender


I'd love it if "The Fly" made an appearance.  Gonna be awesome.  Super excited for APD to see it.

DCV Countdown: My Top 40 U2 songs of all time

40. Electrical Storm
39. Seconds
38. Bullet the Blue Sky
37. The Electric Co.
36. Elevation
35. Mothers of the Disappeared
34. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
33. Staring at the Sun
32. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
31. One Tree Hill
30. October
29. 40
28. Out of Control
27. In God's Country
26. Like a Song
25. Zoo Station
24. Stand Up Comedy
23. Two Hearts Beat as One
22. City of Blinding Lights
21. All I Want Is You
20. Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
19. Gloria
18. A Sort of Homecoming
17. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
16. One
15. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
14. Bad
13. Magnificent
12. I Will Follow
11. Walk On
10. Vertigo
9. Beautiful Day
8. With or Without You
7. New Year's Day
6. The Unforgettable Fire
5. Pride (In the Name of Love)
4. The Fly
3. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. Until the End of the World
1. Where the Streets Have No Name

Quick recap of September

Sorry, I haven't been blogging.  Sometimes I just get in a rut where nothing seems interesting enough to blog about.  Not much of an excuse given that most of the stuff I do blog about isn't that interesting either.  (If you want to read something interesting and actually thought-provoking, go to my G'ma's blog at: http://owlspinetree.blogspot.com/).

Anyway, here's a quick recap of the Life of Dolberry over the last several weeks.

My birthday was really nice.  I'm pretty old now (43).  Hard to get too worked up about prime number birthdays, so that's good.  tbKMD & APD got me a great book, Joe Posnanski's: The Machine.  You may remember Joe Posnanski from such great links as the one in the DCV banner.  He's a great writer and this book was a great read.  Of course, being about the 1975 Reds I'd have probably liked it if it'd been written by one of the Bronte sisters.  Posnanski does the near-impossible at the end of the book ... make you feel sorry for Pete Rose.  He does this w/o glossing over who Rose is either.  Great book.

Our softball team has been taking a pounding this season.  We're 2-7 and in last place.  And I'm not playing very well.  Still have 7 games left, so there's still time to turn it around.  Conversely, APD's baseball team is doing very well.  They're 6-2 in 2nd place.  Don't think he's ever been on a winning team before, in like 7 seasons of baseball, so am happy for him.  He's played some real good defense this year at SS, 1B ... and pitched a few innings along the way.  Hits like his dad though, unfortunately. 

The main thing I'm looking forward to in life is the big U2 show this Saturday in Raleigh.  Going to be awesome.  6 days away.  There'll be a U2 theme to the blog this week.  Apologize in advance.

A few good Bono quotes to get it started:

Rock music to me is rebel music. But rebelling against what? What are we rebelling against now? If I am honest I'm rebelling against my own indifference. I am rebelling against the idea that the world is the way the world is and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

We must allow God to encourage us with His angels, but we must never forget the work is always going to be hard. 

This is not a burden.  This is an adventure.  Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done.  We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty.

But we've got to follow through on our ideals or we betray something at the heart of who we are.

How to fix the Reds (part 1)

They won today ... but the Cincinnati Reds are flat out awful at this point. Last in all of baseball in batting average (.239), on-base percentage (.308), and slugging percentage (.381) ... despite playing in one of the best hitting parks in baseball. In fact, if you look at their road hitting stats, which are not influenced by the offense-friendly GABP, their stats are a putrid .234/.297/.363. To put this in perspective I looked for the player w/ the closest stats to the Reds road split. The winner ... Astros backup catcher Humberto Quintero (.239/.291/.349). Essentially, you can view the Reds lineup on the road as nine Quinteros (which would be a good name for a metal/salsa band). Not surprisingly, they are dead last in runs scored (470). Big ... Dead ... Machine.

The pitching, while fading a bit from April/May, is right around league average which is reasonable considering park effects. The bullpen in particular has been ... well ... very good. Most of the time they are keeping games from getting out of hand rather than preserving leads, unfortunately.

They are 16.5 games out of the wild card lead and very clearly one of the worst 5 0r 6 worst teams in baseball. Their last winning season was 2000 and this decade they have been 116 games under .500. How to fix this mess? Dolberry has the answers.

Before getting to them ... recognize the cure is not going to be an easy one. Barring any massive increases in salary outlay, there are not going to be any easy fixes. You have to start now to build for 2012 or 2013. Yes, that's going to make it hard to sell season tickets next year ... but losing an additional 100-200K in attendance in the short term is worth the potential for an additional 1 to 1.5 million that you'll get when the Dolberry plan has you in the playoffs down the road. Also, realize that it's going to take some luck. The other MLB teams are not idiots, at least the majority of them. There will need to be some calculated risks (zigging when others zag) ... and some of them will have to pan out. But just eliminating the stupid things that the Reds have been doing will help get us started back to respectibility if nothing else.

Salary: Let's assume it's going to stay around $75 million like it's been over the past two years. That's not a problem. It's more than 11 teams, including some playoff candidates. Allocation of those resources has been the problem.

Distribution of salary: I like to view a baseball team as consisting of four parts: 1) the lineup, 2) the rotation, 3) the bullpen, 4) the bench. I'm not sure what the exact optimal allocation of funds should be but certainly you should weight the salary resources against potential contribution towards winning games. Some of this is gut feel ... some is statistical ... some is based on experience in fantasy and tabletop baseball (not a direct translation, admittedly) ... but I think the following distribution is close to right:

Lineup: 45% / Rotation 40% / Bullpen 10% / Bench 5%.

Some of the ideas that are built into this are:
- most of your ABs over a season (~ 70%) come from your top 8-10 players barring injuries
- similarly most of your IP (~60%) will come from your starters
- many relief IP are after the game's already been decided
- most of the bullpen $ should go to a quality pitcher who can be reserved for key situations
- it's easier to find cheap relievers than it is to find cheap position players or starters
- bench can usually be filled w/ useful 1-dimensional cheap pieces (e.g., lefty mashers)

One of the flaws w/ the Reds and their salary allocation this year can be seen in a comparison w/ the St. Louis. The Cardinals have a rotation/bullpen salary ratio of about 4. The Reds' pen of Cordero, Rhodes, & Weathers have pitched great ... but the $17.5 million investment in those three players has not translated to wins because there are few leads to protect ... having shortchanged the more win-relevant parts (lineup and rotation).

Lesson for today ... need to adhere more closely to optimal splits ... Reds bullpen should cost (on average) ~ 7 to 8 million. We'll talk in another installment on how to build a good bullpen w/ that kind of money.

Part 2: Amateur Draft / Free Agents / Minor League Free Agents / Rule 5 Draft / Trades ... general philosophy on how to build a winning roster.

Pitino thoughts

I don't really know what to think about the whole sordid saga involving Rick Pitino. Dolberry always had the sense that he was a master manipulator. I guess he's usually referred to as a master motivator, but those two terms are close cousins. The difference seems to reflect one's intent and I guess in big-time coaching they can be hard to disentangle.

motivator: to provide someone with something that causes a person to act
manipulator: to utilize something skillfully, so as to serve one's purpose

Clearly, no one involved in this mess has managed it w/ any thing resembling skill.

It'll be interesting to see what it's like in November when Pitino's sitting on the Cardinal bench. I doubt it'll affect his coaching and I doubt it'll affect recruiting. I'm just not sure Dolberry will be able to see him and not think of infidelity, abortion, and that scary extortion lady.

For the DCV's newest reader

Welcome aboard Nick!

Farewell to a former friend ...

Guess all of us of a certain age have had friendships that we once really treasured ... but ... for one reason or another (distance, drift, etc.) ... seen steadily fade w/ time until at some point the relationship no longer existed. Dolberry! has made the decision to drop our subscription to the News and Observer and I feel really conflicted about this.

I grew up in household where the morning paper was treasured. My favorite stories about me (are there really any other any kind of stories?) are the ones about how I was reading the newspaper at 3 or how I knew all the current batting averages of MLB players by the age whatever. It used to be a battle for me to get the Sports page before Dad could get to it. The comics section was a consolation prize if the Sports page was gone. In middle school and high school, one of the joys of waking up (besides the cold potato soup breakfast) was knowing that you were but a 4 minute shower, 45 second teeth brushing, and maybe 3o seconds of garb-assembling away from that day's Calvin and Hobbes. In middle school we had current events quizzes that Dolberry always nailed thanks to the newspaper. Even Dolberry's first public writing was published in the newspaper ... a hard-hitting letter to the editor against political action committees. (I'm still agin' 'em.).

By all accounts, the Louisville Courier-Journal was one of the best papers in a medium-sized city back in the day. (Now it appears to be mostly a mechanism to present Belk's ads.) I can't really remember if I had a Post-Dispatch subscription but do know I read it whenever practical. Of course the Chicago Tribune was an awesome paper for our days in and around the Windy City. And the News and Observer down here has been a great paper at least 11 of the last 12 years. Basically, I would guess that 50-75% of my days since Dolberry was five have started w/ a perusal of the newspaper.

Sadly, the newspaper industry contracted a fatal illness sometime over the last 10 years or so. It's been painful to watch. A few corporations bought up a bunch of newspapers and started careful monitoring of the profit margin often at the expense of quality. Many people started getting their news from cable networks or the internet. I think a lot of people (mostly younger) tuned out news for the most part ... staying informed via alternate media / social networks / more effective word of mouth. Circulation numbers started falling. Ad revenue dropped. Production costs rose. Further steps to reduce cost were made and quality suffered further. More people dropped their subscription. Rinse and repeat.

I probably would have kept ponying up the $200 a year for home delivery, but my once close friend started sending signals that he didn't really care about Dolberry! that much any more. And I don't really blame him ... he had to worry about other things ... namely survival. So, not to make it more acrimonious than it needs to be, but I didn't appreciate what my friend started doing:

1) Printing articles in our paper that were originally written for the Charlotte Observer. Dolberry does not care about the Panthers or the Bobcats or PGA events in Charlotte any more than I care about local events in Richmond or Atlanta.

2) The Monday paper became a mini-paper ... one that doesn't even last me the whole bus ride to work.

3) The number of individual voices (sportswriters, columnists, features writers) kept getting whittled down to where the paper seems 75% wire services. What's the point of a local paper that doesn't have a set of distinctive voices that you can enter in to a relationship with?

4) Most damaging to our friendship ... the newspaper quit getting the west coast baseball scores into the next day's paper. There are more "Late Yesterday" boxscores in our paper now than actual ones. Any game that ends after 9:45p is not getting in the next day's paper. I challenge anyone to offer up anything more useless than a 36 hour old boxscore. It's not old enough to be of historical interest and it's not new enough to be news. If you can't get the game in the paper the next day, just skip it.

But really, I'm not really angry about it. I understand why it's happened. But ... it's time to move on. This week I've been reading novels or work stuff on the bus and I haven't missed the paper. A 10 second glance at Google News keeps me up to date w/ all that anyone could ever care to know about cash for clunkers, homicidal maniacs, Russian-Georgian relations, or Paula Abdul. Meanwhile my favorite writers are available via the web: here, here (though he's retiring), here, and here.

So ... newspapers ... thanks ... I'll miss what we had.

Welcome to the fallout

Looks like the non-toxic fallout from the big Apex EQ plant explosion is finally settling out. A federal judge gave the ok to a 7.8 million dollar settlement between EQ and those affected by the resulting evacuation. The Dolberries share of this fortune is expected to be a cool $750. Sheesh, I got out of a day of work ... I should be paying EQ.

Other stories from Apex lately have not been nearly as pleasant. This one (about 1 mile away) and this one (about 1/2 mile away) are unpleasant reminders about the transient quality of life.

On the brighter side, Forbes magazine voted Apex the third best place to move to in the U.S. Presumably, the voting closed before people started shooting and running over people.

Sarasota landed the Orioles for $31 million of public money ... to be funded by a tourism tax. Great ... so when Dolberry comes down for Spring Training he'll be taxed to see the team that replaced the team that he started coming down to see in the first place. I'm staying in Manatee county.

Things are ok w/ Dolberry and his affiliates. APD got scalped and is no worse the wear for it. tbKMD has been running a whole bunch and is also no worse the wear for it. This week Dolberry worked a five day week for the first time since the Taft administration and am the worse for wear. And I wore the worst.

It's time for softball to start.

Small wedding

The Dolberries had a great time out in Asheboro on Thursday night at the Small wedding (Shelly and Cleve). Always great to see the Asheboro kin. It was a really nice ceremony ... held under a big tree just off the 9th green at Tot Hill Farm golf course. Interestingly, the THF course is rated the 7th hardest in the whole country by Golf Digest. Dolberry estimates he'd shoot about a 140 there.

Anyway, here are some pictures ...

This needle in a haystack life

Great time yesterday w/ the youth group up at KingsFest at Kings Dominion. Conversations w/ good friends, wooden roller coasters, and the refueling of my soul that is a Switchfoot show ... that's a great day. (Even if it takes being awake 26 hours to get all that done. Then my 6 hour nap has me up at 12:30a)

Here's the highlight of each of those 26 hours (approximately):

4a: Waking up to tbKMD accidentally dropping a boisterously noisy dish on the kitchen floor.
5a: Getting a free water from Enterprise when renting the "sketch van"
6a: Heading up to Virginia basically on time
7a: Picking up the awesomeness that is Suzy Q in Durham
8a: Listening to Skillet and Fireflight on the drive up.
9a: Seeing blue lights in the rearview and having VA State Police nab someone other than me.
10a: Getting pics of the youth group in front of the KD fountains and Eiffel Tower.
11a: Riding the Log Ride w/ Chowda & JR32
12p: Getting soaked on the Whitewater Canyon (but not as soaked ...)
1p: Seeing Chowda's face when his uncle & cousin met him for lunch.
2p: Riding the coasters and chatting w/ the crew in the lines.
3p: Watching John's $4 103 F "grape"drink melt a cup of ice in around 90 seconds.
4p: Getting a thumbs up from Jon Foreman and Drew Shirley outside the indoor coaster*.
5p: Being able to get tbKMD into the pavillion despite her having lost her ticket**.
6p: Soaking in Hawk Nelson while lying on cool grass under partly cloudy skies.
7p: Really good talk from a pastor from Queens. Learned a lot about Rdy2Ride.
8p: Am starting to like Skillet more. Adding the violin & cello were a great call.
9p: Switchfoot's Beyonce/Rhiannon version of "Gone".
10p: First ever listen to an incredibly uplifting song "Needle and Haystack Life" (see left)
11p: Watching 9 hungry youth try unsuccessfully walk-thru McDonalds drive-thru.
12a: Drinking 2 X-large diet cokes to stay awake for the drive back.
1a: Finding a open reststop to pee.
2a: Getting back to church safe and sound.
3a: The world's groggiest Monopoly game ever w/ Ry, APD, Chowda, and JR32
4a: Trying to stay awake and be banker at same time.
5a: Getting the rental van back & finding our car in the RDU lot.
6a: Returning to church for 120 minutes of sleep before pickup.

* - Dolberry conducted one of his famous interviews of Switchfoot's guitarist Drew Shirley who was wearing the same shirt I was (a lowercase people shirt). As always, Dolberry interviews are not a lot of fluff.

Dolberry: Hey Drew! Nice shirt.
Drew Shirley (pointing at my shirt and giving a victory hand gesture): "Awesome!"

** - It should be noted that she successfully managed about 1000 other things throughout the course of the day.

Switchfoot introduced their new song "Needle in a Haystack Life" w/ a quote from Einstein: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. This is a song about being that second type of a person." Check out the song to the left. It's better than "Hello Hurricane" ... which held the title best song ever for about a week and a half. We are all "once in a lifetime" people.

Back from vacation

Great time at Emerald Isle w/ the folks, Lallys, and G'ma Fitz. Only thing that kept it from perfection was absence of Boards and Harley's owner (& maybe a nightime t-storm).

Only took one day at work to re-realize how great vacation was.

Here's a few pics. APD did a fine job manning the camera.

Hello Hurricane - Best song ever!

OK ... hyperbolic much, Dolberry? But this song rocks. Can't imagine the studio version being better than this initial live effort from Switchfoot. I've listened to it 10 times here this evening (still on Mountain time). Check out the You Tube link to the right if you're reading from Blogger.

I've been watching new skies
They've been turning blood red.
Not a doubt in my mind anymore.
There's a storm up ahead.

Hello Hurricane.
You're not enough,
Hello Hurricane.
You can't silence my love.
I've got doors and windows boarded up,
All your dead fury is not enough,
You can't silence my love

Everything I have becomes lost
Everything I have has been stripped away
Before I started building
I've counted up these costs
There's nothing left for you to take away

Hello Hurricane.
You're not enough,
Hello Hurricane.
You can't silence my love.
I've got doors and windows boarded up,
All your dead fury is not enough,
You can't silence my love

All this time fighting for control
All this time fighting for my soul
Everything inside of me surrenders
You can't silence my love
You can't silence my love

Hello Hurricane.
You're not enough,
Hello Hurricane.
You can't silence my love.
I've got doors and windows boarded up,
All your dead fury is not enough,
You can't silence my love

From thunder to tundra

After the presentations today, Dolberry headed northeast to Rocky Mountain National Park. Just like last year, there was a little bit of squally sun-rain heading out of Boulder, but by the time I hit Estes Park, it was basically broad blue sky.

Drove up the Trail Ridge road to the Tundra Nature Trail. It starts at 12, 115 feet and climbs another 250 feet on the 1 mile walk. Wow, the air is thin up that high. Hard to breathe and walk at the same time sort of thin. And despite being pre-hydrated to past flood stage, I had a bit of a headache as well getting started. Thankfully they have little information signs every 50 yards or so that you can stop and read (e.g., "lichen is a fascinating example of tundra adaptation") ... while not betraying you would have had to stop to catch your breath anyway. It was a wee bit chilly up there ... maybe mid-50's and breezy. Unlike the other trail folk, Dolberry was dressed uncomfortably in a t-shirt and shorts.

I'm not sure if it was the oxygen-deficit or natural goofiness, but I did the last stages of the "out" portion of the trail as Gollum ... cursing the nasty hobbitses while searching for my precious. You had to be there. At the end, you can climb up these rocks and cast a near-sunset shadow about a quarter of a mile down and maybe 200 yards long.

Sitting up there ... saw a herd of elk cross the road and head across the snowfields below me. Beautiful glacier lakes, humorous-looking marmots, and even higher mountain tops shining in the sun were no match for the best sight of all ... the restrooms at the trailhead. I probably peed for 3 minutes.

Anyway, great day. Wish you guys were there as well. Am guessing that Dolberry was the only person in a 50-mile radius w/o a camera, but these ones off the interwebs were pretty much what it looked like (except w/o the hunched over hobbit-like creature skulking up the trail). Thanks to the photographer at the interwebs for making them available.

Votto, part II

It turns out ... and this happens very infrequently ... that I was right about what was bugging Joey Votto. He returned to the Reds yesterday after missing three weeks. It sounds like after his dad died last August at the young age of 52 ... the sadness of that coupled w/ a realization that "we are not infinite, we are not permanent" ... pretty much got him in a bad state. At one point while on the DL, he called 911 at 3am fearful he was dying,

"I could not take it," he said. "I thought I was going to die."

So glad he's doing better and hope he realizes that it's a really a perverse sort of gift to know that life doesn't last forever.

A life spent chasing tornadoes?

So, I'm out here in the foothills of the Rockies ... attending the WRF workshop. Some of the talks were interesting; others were not (to me anyway). Coming out of the meeting after the last presentation, I was reminded of why I got into meteorology in the first place ... the sky was darkening to the north and thunder murmured from above. Having no real plans for the evening (other than to skip the conference reception) ... I decided to chase the storm like all those cool dudes and dudettes on the Discovery Channel. The radio indicated that it was severe, was over the airport, and was heading northeast.

At the beginning, it was more of a drive than a chase. Drove east through the towns of Dacono and Fort Lupton seeing only one (very cool) bolt of lightning. But as I merged onto I-76 East and could go the 75 mph speed limit ... there was a rapid narrowing of the gap between Dolberry and the darkest skies. Frigthening pulses of lightning surged from cloud to earth at 15 second intervals just to the south of the highway. I was trying to get out ahead of the storm ... to get to a point where I could watch it roll in.

I stopped in Roggen ... on a little hill ... but it was clear that the real action was further south and east. Got back on the interstate and sped on to the little town of Wiggins CO. Several miles before the exit, I saw a small shelf cloud off to the left. Called my radar back in NC (thanks Kyle) who confirmed what was becoming apparent ... I'd gotten right in the path of a big storm. Drove south down a narrow road, just like the one you see real StormChasers drive on all the time ... finally stopping when I saw some clouds lower than the rest.

I watched them for a while ... they seemed a long way off at first ... but then they seemed really close. The wind started to gust ... maybe 40 mph ... and then the rain began blowing sideways. I'll admit I was a little scared even though there was no real hints of a tornado ... just a nice sized Great Plains thunderstorm. I did a U-turn ... really a sideways T-turn ... and headed back to the interstate in a driving rain.

(There eventually was a tornado from the storm ... 80 miles downwind.)

When I was scared there ... for those first adrenelin-fueled seconds that accompany any good downdraft ... I wondered why in the world I'd driven some 70 miles to get in the path of a storm. Driving back to Boulder, wondered further if the evening was a little metaphor for life on Earth ... and whether one should chase highly-transient objects that can be both really cool (popularity, success, wins, wins, wins) yet are often suddenly destructive.

It'd be cliched if it weren't true ... but I saw a beautiful rainbow on the way back ... heading away from the storm ... heading back to a temporary home.

Dolberry Doused in D.C.

Got to go to D.C. last week ... fun experience. Honors award ceremony was nice. Got to shake Lisa Jackson's hand. (Will post picture when I get it.) Afterward we were eating lunch outside at a restaurant on Pennsylvania Ave. when numerous Homeland Security cars came racing by w/ sirens blaring ... for the Holocaust shooting less than a mile away. (I seriously don't understand how somebody can hold that much hate for that long. At some point don't you have to find something better to do w/ your life.)

After checking into my hotel, rode the Metro over to the new Nationals Park to see the Reds play the Nats. Very cool place. Right along the Potomac.

Caught a lot of BP and caught a ball on a carom. Some pre-game pics of the park.



Not many people at the game ... maybe about 30% full. Got $29 tix on the street for $20. It was a hot day, but as game time approached it started to get darker and darker.


The Reds only got two hits through the first 7 innings, but fortunately one of them was a 2-run bomb from Jay Bruce. Even better, Aaron Harang was pitching a gem and the Reds led 2-0 going into the bottom of the 9th. It had been raining off and on since about the 4th, but it got serious by the end w/ lightning and torrential rain eventually chasing everyone off the field.


I stuck around for about 45 minutes, but because I had been up since 4:20a ... had a train ride back to the hotel (in Virginia) ... and an 8:30a meeting the next morning ... ... I decided to bail before the end of the rain delay. They started baseball again a little before midnight and the Reds blew the lead, only to win it in the 12th at 12:45a. Apparently, less than 100 fans were left at the game's end.

My meeting the next day was good and I got back home in time for a softball DH in which the second game was postponed due to lightning (that was about 30 miles away).

Busy week next week (big briefings on Mon and Thurs) ... then the travels continue: Louisville, Colorado, Emerald Isle. Should be fun. Life is good.

Thinking of Joey Votto

Joey Votto is the offensive firepower of the Cincinnati Reds. He's only 25 years old and he's having an exceptional season ... maybe one of the best in the league. He's hitting .357 and has an unbelieveable OPS of 1.091. Everything you read about the guy is that he is a gamer ... the first to arrive for a game ... takes the most infield practice ... works hard to get better everyday.

OK ... quick question ... what does he have in common w/ Dolberry?

(Yep, we share the same birthday ... September 10th.)

May has been a tough month for Votto. Not hitting, but health-wise. He's had to come out of the game three times this past month because of dizziness.

The first time he was diagnosed w/ the flu. When he'd ostensibly recovered from the flu, it happened again and nobody knew what was wrong. The team doctor checked him into a clinic in San Diego and put him through a battery of tests. Eventually, they concluded he had an inner ear infection and cleared him to play. In his first game back, he mashed two homers, but then was in and out of the lineup over the rest of the week. Finally, on Friday he came out of another game in the 2nd inning.

After the game, the Reds put him on the 15-day DL w/ stress-related issues and noted that Votto asked for privacy as he worked through returning to help. Here was a quote from Votto last week:

"After all the tests I went through, it's been pretty scary the past few days,"

I really have no way of knowing, but I think Dolberry and Joey Votto have one more thing in common ... not sure what the medical term would be ... or if there's even a real medical condition like this ... but I think we both came down w/ EAFA (early-adult finiteness awareness). Simply put, it's when you go through the first 20 years of your life pretty much w/o any significant hardship and then one day ... all of a sudden ... you don't feel very good and you realize that one unknown day in the near or far future ... you are going to die.

It was the day of the OKC bombing that I had to go home from work early and see a doctor. I had been feeling progressively worse over the previous month ... basically having no energy. The tests showed high counts of mycoplasma and a case of pneumonia. I got antibiotics and you'd figure that was that. But it wasn't. I didn't really feel any better over the next two weeks, eventually getting to the point where I couldn't walk around our appartment building complex w/o becoming exhausted (& this was when I was in shape). Over time, my fingers and toes started to go numb from time to time. The doctors did more tests (EKG type stuff), but didn't really see anything wrong. I went to the ER one night w/ absolutely nothing wrong w/ me ... aside from a certainty that I was dying of something. One doctor prescribed some Xanax to reduce my anxiety and while that helped temporarily ... I started really getting worried about getting addicted to them ... think I had 1-2 refills. Many a time during that stretch I felt like I couldn't go out of the house w/o a Xanax. In the end, I never took the last 5-6 pills I had ... very strange ... but I couldn't bring myself to throw them out in case I ever needed them again. I finally pitched them one day down here a few years ago ... figuring they were probably expired anyway. The whole episode probably lasted 3-4 months before I broke out from the spiral down.

Four things helped me get out of the undertow:

1) tbKMD (& my family) were unfailingly w/ me every step which had to be hard, because I went from carefree Dolberry to neurotic Dolberry pretty much w/o any warning.

2) I eventually got routed to a great doctor in Naperville who just let me talk one time for about 45 minutes. Not a psych doc, but an internal medicine guy. He somehow made me feel better about myself in one appointment ... saying 'hey, stuff like this happens'.

3) Mary B (tbKMD's mom) gave me a prayer card that said "Lord, help me remember that nothing will happen today that You and I can't get through together." While I did throw the Xanax out eventually, I've kept that card on my desk ever since.

4) Softball. Eventually, when the weather in Chicago got nice (you know that one week every year), I remember thinking finally, I don't care if I am dying, I'm going to play some ball today.

So, I don't know if this is what's bothering Joey Votto or not. Either way, I just hope that people come alongside of him that care for him, let him talk it out w/o pressure, remind him that his life is part of something way bigger, and let him get back on the field doing what he loves. Hang in there Joey.

Just a Shadow

Good day today.

After interminable rainouts and conflicts ... got out on the ballfield tonight and went 3-3 w/ three doubles. (Their LF plays me too deep.) Also, threw a guy out at 2nd from LCF. We were down 7 zip early but rallied to win 15-12. Last game of the Apex season is tomorrow and the tournament starts Friday ... hopefully at 9pm. We're probably looking at the #3 seed.

We had our church car wash today and it wasn't a disaster. We only washed about 15-20 cars in three hours, but it was a lot of work. Last night, we had about 50-60 people in for our "Trinity Rocks" event. That was kind of a leap of faith ... not knowing two of the three bands ... but everyone was supernice and aside from the mild hearing impairment for three hours of 105 dB, there was no major damage to personnel or property. The last in the trilogy of church events of which Dolberry is at least partially responsible is next Friday (hopefully done by 8:30p ... see above) when we're having a chicken BBQ dinner to support a cool charity. Hoping to sell 200-250 dinners, but that may be wildly optimistic. After that ... a break. Looking forward to a workbreak at the end of June at the beach w/ the D'berries and Lalliberries.

APD is done w/ school. He went to a 5 hour end of school party yesterday at a classmates house. Crazy social skillz. Tonight we watched probably half of Monty Python and the Holy Grail via YouTube clips and were both laughing until we had to catch our breath. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti.

Going back to basics for my lyrical encouragment these days. Nobody does it better than the kilt-wearing men who invented the seagull.

It went so well for you
With a place right where you wanted and the ones to fill it to
But some blows break the spell
That it hits you every day until you need to hit as well

It's just a shadow of the man you should be
Like a garden in the forest that the world will never see
You have no thought of answers only questions to be filled
And it feels like hell

It all seemed fine for you
Till the struggle of ambition turned in violence upon you
Sometimes a landslide comes
If you're hiding in that avalanche you need a place to run

It's just a shadow of the woman you should be
Like a garden in the forest that the world will never see
And you have no thought of answers only questions to be filled
And it feels like hell

I know there is no need for what's been done
I know there is enough for everyone
Frustration brings a heavy hand to bear
And there's never been a hand

Did we ever have it good
While we lived in Eldorado did we find the gold we should
If it really was the truth
Why are faces filled with anger that should only shine with youth

It's just a shadow of the people we should be
Like a garden in the forest that the world will never see
You have no thought of answers only questions to be filled
And it feels like hell

I know there is no need for what's been done
I know there is enough for everyone
Frustration brings a heavy hand to bear
And there never is a hand outside that cares
Still the promise comes of living fit for all
If we only get our back against the wall
I look at backs that pushed the wall for years
Scarred by many knives and too much fear

Dolberry makes a clown out of himself

There's a picture of APD's (from the school newsletter) getting ready for a vocal performance. They were really good this year. Probably did 6-8 performances. Not sure where his bow tie is there.

Ugh. Awful night tonight. I had a church commitment that I couldn't get out of and thus had to miss most of APD's game. Got through that meeting w/ a bad attitude on the inside ... rushed to the park ... catching every red light on the way ... to get there w/ APD up in the top of the last. Down 5-3, runner on 1st, one out. He fouls off three pitches and then gets called out on a pitch that was at his eyes. His coach got thrown out for coming out of the dugout and arguing the call ... the only ejection I can ever remember seeing in 6 years of youth baseball in Apex.

I was in a spectacularly foul mood at that point & yelled out from the bleachers ... "Blue, there is NO WAY that is a strike. NO WAY!" The game was over 4 pitches later and I managed to compose myself when the ump walked past to head to his car.

So now I guess I'm one of "those parents". After years of never criticizing umpires, always encouraging kids on both teams, thanking scorekeepers, deruffling other parents ... I feel like I ruined it all in 3 seconds.

I don't like who I'm becoming ... things have to change.