Move Update

It looks like pretty much everything is squared away for the big move. After a couple agonizing weeks dealing with mortgage people, it looks like everything is where it should be. I'm not going to get too far into it, but let's just say you should avoid getting your mortgage through Bank of America if you can help it. Customer service is not their forté. A quick call elsewhere and all of our headaches were gone.

We close on the loan on Wednesday and should get the keys sometime on Friday. That means this weekend is "packing" weekend, and next weekend will be moving weekend. I say "packing" because we are only moving a few blocks, so it's going to be real half-assed packing. I think the plan is to throw the kitchen in some boxes, move them to the new house, put them away, and bring the boxes back to the apartment for the next room.

Today, my manly self installed a trailer hitch on the Escape so we can tow a trailer with the big stuff on it. I know, I know, pretty impressive. My hands were dirty and everything. The instructions said it would take 40 minutes, but it took me an hour. I guess I needed more pictures. The important thing is: it's done and it's at least sturdy enough to support my weight on it. We'll see how it does with more next weekend.

An Open Letter to the MLB Chief Blackout Officer

Dear Sir or Madam:

I have been a huge baseball fan since sometime between 1984 and 1987. The first year I actually played little league was in 1984, when I was four years old. Don't ask, I was from a small town, and we just made it work. The first time I fell in love with the Chicago Cubs was in 1987. Back then, the Cubs were on WGN every DAY (yeah, day, not night). I, like many other kids, would run home from school to turn on the last couple innings of that day's game. I learned to keep scorebook, and I have since found countless books from games stashed all over my old bedroom. Suffice it to say, I'm a pretty big Cubs fan, and I like to watch a baseball game any chance I get. Let's get to the point.

I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is home to the Indianapolis Indians, AAA farm club of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Because of your — what some would call arcane — blackout restrictions, I don't get to see many Cubs games these days. I've always been under the impression that the point of blackout restrictions is to make sure fans go to the ballgame. If there's a home game and it's not sold out, the game is not on TV in that team's market. This is where it gets cloudy. Why am I in so many teams' "markets?" There's no way I could possibly go to Cubs games in Chicago very regularly when I live three hours away. I'm in everybody's market. I can't get Cubs or White Sox games. I can't get Reds games. Despite what the map above appears to say, I can't even get Cardinals games. (Trust me, they're playing KC right now on Fox Sports Midwest and I've got test bars.) St. Louis is NEARLY FOUR HOURS AWAY!

Anyway, I would like someone to explain these rules to me. I just want to see my first place Cubs play a game every now and then. I have made trips to Wrigley Field every year for a long time. Last year I purchased the Extra Innings package because I was out of the Cubs market for the summer. I have paid for MLB.com's Gameday Audio every year for as long as I can remember. I'm not trying to escape expenses. Throw me a bone MLB!

Sincerely,

Scott Allen

Lots of Rain

Over the last couple of weeks, Indianapolis has gotten pummeled with rain. As I'm sitting here watching the Cubs, Fox is running a flash flood warning and seven counties south of Indy have declared a "Level 1 Flood Emergency." Authorities are asking residents not to travel. There have been about three or four occasions where our back yard has flooded full of water lately, which makes me laugh, because the "pond" fills up with mallards almost immediately. I finally got downstairs and took a few pictures of it.

This bad weather is causing all kinds of problems. Some of my coworkers lost power and had flooded basements last week. Hopefully that's not happening again right now. Surely the construction schedules for the bridges on my route to work are falling behind. It looks like the rain has hopefully stopped for today, but Monday and Tuesday are still showing isolated thunderstorms. Any ideas why this stuff is happening in June instead of April?

More Big News

Katie and I keep coming up with more big news to broadcast on the blog. This time we are in the process of buying a house. Although it's really good news and very cool for us to finally be moving somewhere permanent and not paying rent anymore, the house-buying process is way too grueling for me. After years of being about to pick up whatever I want at a store or buy something online and get it in a couple days, The idea of waiting a month and a half to get possession after we've signed the offer is just unreal.

So the stats of the place: It's a 3-bedroom, 2½-bathroom, two-story house. It has a dining room, living room, kitchen, half-bath laundry room and two car garage on the first level, and two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a master suite upstairs. We also have a small back yard and a small wooded area behind that.

The neighborhood seems pretty nice and quiet, and the way it's built, there's nowhere else to build, so it's as big as it can get. We're also not too far away from the park, and the best news of—we only have to move about half a mile from our current apartment! So, we'll be moving the weekend of June 27th. Keep that in mind if any of you want to help us move some stuff.

Indianapolis Zoo

We made a trip to the zoo over the weekend. The weather was great, sunny and warm, but not too warm. We checked out most of the animals, including the visiting Koalas.

The photo on the left links to the rest of the stuff I shot. Feel free to check them out.