They play beisbol in my county

Yesterday evening the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new minor league downtown stadium were held, just four blocks from my current housesitting gig. The stadium will be home field for the Winston-Salem Warthogs, who currently play their games at Ernie Shore Field.

Ernie Shore is a fine place to watch a baseball game, but apparently there's all this annoying grass where you could have seats, and it's not in the "right" part of town (although it's right across the street from where Wake Forest plays all its basketball games.) So the team owners convinced the county commissioners to fork over $12.5 million in tax incentives over the next 25 years and the city council to flat out pay $21 million in cash and another $8 million in tax incentives. Because we are losing "young professionals" and this will keep them in the city.

They hope.

I didn't go to the ceremony. I had a rehearsal and I also would have felt like a hypocrite since I did not support public financing of this stadium. I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong, but somehow I doubt this is going to be the key to revitalizing downtown. And I can think of a lot of other places the city and county could have spent their money, like affordable housing and health care, but nobody ever has fireworks to celebrate a new housing development.

Yes, we had fireworks. And I happened to be driving up the hill to the house when they started. And I happened to remember that I had my camera in the car. And despite everything, I am a sucker for fireworks.

Rain

From the National Weather Service:

WIDESPREAD RAIN...HEAVY AT TIMES...AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED THROUGHOUT TODAY. RAINFALL RATES BRIEFLY EXCEEDING ONE INCH AN HOUR MAY CAUSE LOCALIZED FLOODING ON SMALL STREAMS....IN URBAN DRAINAGES...AND ON HIGHWAYS. MOTORISTS MAY ALSO ENCOUNTER SUDDEN POOR VISIBILITY CAUSED BY THE HEAVY RAIN AND SPRAY. TRAVEL DELAYS ARE LIKELY AND PEOPLE SHOULD ALLOW EXTRA TIME TO REACH THEIR DESTINATIONS.

It hasn't rained much more than a light sprinkle in over a month, and that was just once, about a week ago. We have not had two consecutive days of rain since sometime in May, but today is our third day of beautiful, drenching rain. Honest to God, I got into my car the other morning and had to think for a minute to remember how to use my windshield wipers. Last night I saw lightning for the first time since the beach in July and its brilliance startled me.

I am going to spend the afternoon sitting on the screen porch, reading my book, drinking my tea, listening to the rain. Life is good.

God's in his heaven, Al's right with the world

You know he's gotta be lovin' this. While the petulant child pouts in the Oval Office, Al picks up more bling for the mantle piece.

I've always been amused by the right wing reaction to Al's efforts on global warming. It's generally some variation of "he's a fraud because he lives in a big house and flies all over the world giving these speeches." It suits their purposes so well to pretend that the only way you can save the planet is live in a hut and ride a bicycle. It relieves them of the responsibility of doing anything.

The other claim I've heard ad nauseum is that his books are ghostwritten. I had to read "Earth in the Balance" back in 1992 for a class on Ecological Health. If Al paid someone to write that book for him, he sure didn't get his money's worth. Jeebus, what a grind.

So, what was a pretty lousy week for me ends on a positive note. Or two positive notes, actually. Edy's Grand Limited Edition Pumpkin Ice Cream is back in your grocer's freezer. But just for a while, so don't be wasting your time watching the World Series when you could be shopping.

It's not like any team that matters is playing this year, anyway.