It's Not A Blog

Go ahead and say this title like Arnold would.

A few months ago, I wrote about being nominated in the Best Blog category of the Pittsburgh City Paper's Best of PGH 2023. I explained at the time that I thought you should vote for Sue of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents or Virginia of Breathing Space. Sue and Virginia finished second and third respectively. As a tangent, Sue is going through some personal "things," so please support her if you can. In addition, Virginia recently published a book called Nothing. Everything. that I'm looking forward to reading. Go check it out!

Back to the post. When I wrote about being nominated, I included this statement about one of my fellow nominees Uncle Bob's Magic Cabinet or UBMC not to be confused with UPMC, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center:

This nomination actually bothers me. This is a website promoting a mother and daughter's podcast about magic and mythology. There are no posts on the website. A nomination in the podcast category would be appropriate but not in the blog category.

UBMC ended up winning in this category which boggles my mind because IT'S NOT A F!&%ING BLOG! It's a website for the podcast. There are no posts. Pittsburgh City Paper interviewed the mother-daughter duo who also won in the Best Podcast category. There's no mention of a blog or writing in the article. You know why? Again, it's because IT'S NOT A BLOG!

Look, I know some people might have an issue with my nomination since I don't live in Pittsburgh anymore. That's fair. I would counter that I've been part of the Pittsburgh Bloggers Facebook group for years, contribute to the Ya Jagoff website, and often write about Pittsburgh topics, most notably Pittsburgh sports teams. However, Sean's Ramblings would be eligible as a blog because this site is a blog.

Okay, I'm done thinking about this. Maybe the City Paper can screen its nominees a little more next year.

Shana Tova From NFL Teams Part II

Welcome to my second annual post where I see what National Football League teams use their social media accounts (specifically Twitter) to share a Shana Tova, or Happy New Year, messages for Rosh Hashanah. Last year, 4 NFL teams (the Lions, Jets, Ravens, and Buccaneers) posted a message. With Rosh Hashanah being on a Sunday, I gave the teams a little bit of a pass since the teams' social media departments were probably busy with games. This year, Rosh Hashanah started on Friday evening. Plenty of opportunities for teams to post a message on Friday or Saturday. Let's see the results:

9 this year which is a nice improvement from last year. I really like Chicago having a bear getting honey from a beehive. Well done! I also want to give partial credit to the Carolina Panthers and Buffalo Bills. I mean, if you're celebrating Rosh Hashanah without Bojangles or a wing-eating contest, you're doing it wrong!

L'Shana Tova to those who are celebrating!

Happy Rosh Hashanah From Your Local Grocery Store

If we're making a menu of traditional Rosh Hashanah foods, apples and honey are at the top of the list. Then, you must have a round challah. From there, if you're hosting a dinner, you can have a chicken, beef, or fish main course and maybe some vegetables like carrots or mashed potatoes and a kugel as sides. Finally, finish your meal with some type of cake or apple pie. Why do I mention this? While I really appreciate grocery stores wishing shoppers a Happy New Year, it seems like some just promote any or all Kosher products even if they don't have anything to do with Rosh Hashanah.

This is from Giant:

This is from Safeway:

Again, I don't want to discourage grocery stores from mentioning Rosh Hashanah and acknowledging the holiday. Just leave matzo ball soup and gefilte fish out of it!

The Random Phone Call

Back in May, I received a random voicemail on my home phone. Yes, I still have a home phone, but that's not the point of the post. The guy gave his name and phone number and said that he had some baseball questions for me. While I had no idea who this person was, I called my mom to see if she knew this gentleman since they share the same area code. I thought that maybe my mom had a conversation with a neighbor or friend and somehow the fact that I am a baseball fan came up. When I talked to my mom, she didn't know this person and thought it was a scam. Still, while random and unusual, I didn't think this was a scam. Then, before I called back, I had a revelation.

(Not sure if this video fits with my "revelation," but I like it.)

I share a first and last name with a fairly prominent individual in the online sports, and in particular, baseball community. We definitely don't share a household name, but the other Sean runs websites visited by many sports fans looking for historic information and data. There have been several times over the years where people contacted me thinking that I'm him. Generally, it's as a Facebook friend request. So before I called the guy (let's call him Greg) back, I figured out that he thought I was the other Sean and randomly found my home number thinking I was him.

Greg is probably in his 70s or 80s and is a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan. Apparently, his relative came across some negatives of old Boston Braves players including Babe Ruth. He was trying to contact the other Sean to try to identify some of the players in the pictures. We had a nice conversation about baseball, Fenway Park, and more, and it concluded with me trying to be the middleman between Sean and him.

I contacted Sean and gave him Greg's contact information. Sean replied and indicated that one of his customer service folks would reach out to him. After two weeks of not hearing anything, I contacted Sean again, but he replied that he never heard back from Greg. I tried Greg again asking if he was able to connect with Sean and his company. I also wrote that I would love to see some of the pictures if he didn't mind sending them. This is what he sent:

Now I'm not a baseball historian, and I don't play one on the internet. However, I clearly recognize this picture as Johnny Damon who played on the Boston Red Sox (and not the Boston Braves) from 2002-2005. Greg and I have not had any additional correspondence.

UPDATE!

Several hours after this post went live, I received an email from someone at the sports website "referenced" above. It turns out that Greg did contact them and provided several photos though not negatives and not all Boston Braves players either. The website was able to identify two photos of Jimmie Foxx, one of Lefty Grove, and one of Mel Ott and Wally Berger together. There was no additional contact from Greg after the website wrote back with the IDs.

Welcoming Lucy

My brother and his family got a kitten named Lucy at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, their dog constantly chased Lucy whenever they were together, so Lucy really didn’t have the freedom to roam around the house whenever and wherever. Because of this, not long after we had to say goodbye to Ziggy, they asked if we wanted to take Lucy. Between some vacations and work needing to be done at the house, we delayed a decision until late August when we said we would take her. On Monday, we brought Lucy home.

For the first 4-5 hours at our home, Lucy stayed in the basement. While she found her litter box, ate food, and drank water, Lucy didn’t really let us near her. I get it. She’s in a brand new place, and three loud boys will make anyone want to hide! With everyone in bed and me sitting on the couch watching TV, she ventured to the main level of the house and even upstairs. I worked from home on Tuesday to get some bonding time with Lucy. She did more exploration and started being comfortable around me. I mean, I have some scratches on my hand and arm (she made me bleed my own blood), but she purred and seemed happy to be around me.

(The next two videos are not suitable for work or kids.)

She's starting to get into a routine. She sleeps/hides under one of the living room couches when the kids are home in the evening. They are loud, and she doesn't seem to want to deal with all three. The big adjustment for us is going from Ziggy, an older cat who slept a lot including on or next to me to Lucy, a kitten who has incredible energy. She's basically Roy Kent. She's everywhere.

Enjoy some pictures!

August Review

I’ll admit that I’m stealing this post directly from Heidi. She regularly writes “Housekeeping” posts where she highlights activities and events from the previous month and previews the next month. So this represents my highlights from August.

* August started with me visiting my mom in South Florida. It seems like the summer weather there consists of extremely hot and humid temperatures and/or torrential thunderstorms. That’s the weather Every Single Day!

* The Moose and Pedro Tulo went to an overnight camp for three weeks. They both had an amazing time and wanted us to sign them up to go for seven weeks next summer. Three weeks is plenty. I’m so happy that they were happy at camp. It’s such a great experience for them to be at a place they enjoy, meeting new people, and trying new things.

* You would think with Luigi at home, it would be much easier with just one kid. Nope. He can be a handful just on his own.

* Saw “The Play That Goes Wrong” at the Kennedy Center. Might have been the most I’ve laughed in years.

* If you didn’t see them earlier, please check out my posts about seeing Pink and my Dad Camp week activities. Those were both big events in August.

* The Moose started middle school. He was nervous about going to a new school and navigating his way around the building, but he seems to be doing okay so far. One quick story. On the first day of school, a girl in a few of his classes had Ohio State stickers all over her water bottle. He wanted to wear his Ohio State T-shirt the next day in an apparent attempt to show that they had something in common, so I washed the shirt for him. The Moose wore the shirt the next day, but she wasn't there.

* Seems like good starts to the school year for Pedro Tulo and Luigi too as they began 4th and 1st grades. Luigi has the same 1st grade teacher as his brothers. She's the best, so we're very happy about this.

That's about it for August. I participated in a few fantasy football drafts and made some big trades in the fantasy baseball league I've been in for over 30 years. I've also made a goal to write at least 8 separate blog posts, so please visit often to see if I accomplish my goal!

The Play That Goes Wrong photo by Jeremy Daniel.