There is great fun unfolding in the one-party kingdom of Ohio's Cuyahoga County. By "fun" I mean Eliot-Spitzer-caught-with-his-pants-down type of mirth. Apparently while I was sitting at the airport waiting for my plane to NYC the FBI and the IRS were serving search warrants at the homes and offices of various county honchos and construction magnates, taking possession of files and hard-drives in what appears to be a major corruption scandal.

Gotta love it. Ever since I moved here I've been repulsed by the grinning image of the county auditor who had the nerve (and the access to county money) to have a photo of himself placed on a sticker that attaches to every gas pump in the area. Every time I filled the tank I saw his ridiculous image and thought to myself, "We need term limits." Now I can think to myself, "We need more federal penitentiaries."

Now that I'm caught up with the various news accounts I am struck by another aspect of this scandal: just about everyone targeted in the investigation has stated publicly how surprised and shocked (shocked!) they are that the FBI came to seize their papers and records.

That can mean only one thing: they knew the raid was coming. Which makes sense: it borders on extraordinary for the FBI to have swooped in to take records this way rather than through grand jury subpoena. So they also must've realized the investigation targets were aware of the surveillance -- and were already destroying evidence.

My bet (pure speculation): all the evidence of dirty business was expunged prior to Monday's raids. Which, of course, is why they are all insisting that the raid came as a total surprise to them.

Eh, doesn't matter to the local voters anyway. They like things just the way they are.

And I'm starting to get used to it myself -- kind-a reminds me of New York in the 1970s. Except without the Wall Street revenues to keep the rent-seekers in high cotton. (Actually, today's New York is itself looking like New York in the 1970s without the Wall Street revenues... dumb bastards brought it on themselves.)

When I got to my gate at LaGuardia tonight I was encouraged to see an aircraft actually sitting on the field at the end of our jetway. That was better than the fiasco American Airlines put me through yesterday morning, with late-arriving plane reporting a "maintenance issue" and a resulting two hour delay to work into my travel/meeting plans.

Asshats.

But tonight would be different: we had ourselves a plane!

No crew, though. They were coming in from Raleigh Durham (I recall that happening to me in the past), and even when they landed it took them forever to get to our gate. And when we finally pushed back the pilot kindly announced that we were 20th in line for takeoff.

American Airlines sucks the bat-wang.

But somehow in the crush of tiny seating I managed to not crush the black and white cookies smuggled home for Da Chimpz.

Yes, I'll never forget my own emergency visit to the men's room at the Beverly Hilton...

But that's another story! This has been quite the mid-summer weekend -- with Mojo sleeping over at a friend's place on Friday night, our hosting some backyard grilling with a few families last night, and a pool party for Da Chimpz' basebal league... in a few minutes.

But we are indeed getting old. Tell-tale signs? Last nights backyard BBQ broke up before nine. I stayed out back to start putting things away. Got Cookie out to play a little catch with the Nerf fotball-with-the-fins thing. Then as it got dark we started looking for bats (as we'd done on Friday night, tossing the ball into the bat's path to watch it swerve toward the ball, thinking he'd happened upon the fattest gnat in Berea).

But no bats last night. So we went around the back and turned on the bug-zapper -- which was riveting entertainment. No really, we were glued to the thing -- was like small scale fireworks. Old Sparky for the insect menace.

Got bitten up anyway. Even the fogger doesn't keep them away. Bloodsuckers.

Wow-I can tell that it has been quite a long time since I have blogged as I could not remember how to sign in. After much swearing...I was able to get on board.

This was imperative due to the Guitar Hero slander spoken by John. He is quite right that I was unable to play Guitar Hero the first evening--but he forgot to mention the major reason for this. I am left handed and I did not realize that there is a feature to flip the guitar to left handed and I just tried to learn it right handed. By the next day I was able to do it. That game is way fun. I want all the games. I also would like the Rock Band thing--but I heard that the drums dont work so good for Wii.

I would like to say that John was quite a good sport about going to see Robert Plant and Allison Krauss. I know he can not stand that type of music and I really wanted to go. I had gotten the CD and really enjoyed it. I will admit that I am not much of a country fan but I do like folk and blue grass and for anyone that does not know--Allison Krauss and Union Station are pretty much the top performers in that arena. For any of you that saw "Brother Where Art Thou", she was all over that soundtrack. I greatly enjoyed the show and they played everything on their CD as well as some of the songs from "Brother Where Art thou" and some Zeppelin tunes.

Tomorrow I take the day off from work and go on a day trip with my mom. There is a museum exhibition going on of Vatican Art and I wanted to go and my mom was kind enough to go with me. Although she did say that she saw them in Rome why see them in Cleveland. (Not quite as good of sport as John) I also meant that we could go together--but she thought I meant with the church group and so I will be spending the day on a bus with members of my church seeing

Alane and I aren't much like other married couples. Which is why we were able to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary this week by playing Guitar Hero on the Wii. Guido and Kay and given one of the game discs to Da Chimpz for their birthdays but we did not yet have the guitar game controller.

So to mark our special day, I got us the guitar. And the game disc that came with it.

And then we played Guitar Hero for the rest of the night. It was strangely addictive, once you get past the initial learning curve. Alane had a bit of a challenge getting through her first song in its entirety, despite multiple tries -- if I had to hear "Slow Ride" by Foghat one more time on Thursday night, I probably would have had to burn the house down.

But like I say, once you get the hang of it, you're in. We already finished off the first disc in Easy mode; the other one has a lot of Aerosmith which I can take or leave... but I keep wanting to open up the new songs so I keep playing them.

And speaking of music, we also went to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss this week. Lemme tell you something: when I see guys with banjos and fiddles on stage, that's usually a good indication that I walked into the wrong bar. What was Robert Plant thinking?

This has been quite a day for baseball. First, we got up early to catch the championship game of the 7-8 league then hung around a while longer to watch a playoff game in the 9-10 league. Then homeward to relax, shop, and watch some of the Detroit game in TV (but not much of it -- I wish there was a better selection of games to watch on a Saturday afternoon, it being the only time of the week I can lie on the couch and watch a game... if it's a team I have at least some interest in).

And tonight we decided to risk the scattered thunderstorms to head out to Jacobs Field and watch the Indians play the Devil Rays. Not only did it not storm, but my random selection of seats got us right up in the middle of the fireworks display they held once the game was over.

At first the fireworks seemed a bit lame -- they brought out this weird choir of be-smocked and aging flower children to sing the theme song of "The Jeffersons" and other assorted rock and roll abstractions while making us wait for the fireworks that we'd already waited 9 innings to see. Despite the pain of those musical interludes, the fireworks were pretty good. And as I said, our nosebleed seats above the leftfield foul pole had us pretty much in the bursts (unlike the poor bastards in the bleachers, adjacent to our section, which had to be emptied of spectators to make way for the explosives). The final salvo was really big and really loud. Even Mojo liked it. We skedaddled before they could start any more of that insufferable singing -- "Give Peace a Chance" they chanted, as ornamental ordnance detonated over their hippie heads. Ridiculous.

I've been meaning to comment on this photo...

Last month I read news articles about the optical illusion caused by the "solstice moon" which stays close to the horizon and therefore appears huge. That's what came to mind as I looked at this photo.

Notice the two hats. They are identical. But why does the one on Bazzukajoe's head appear so tiny compared to the normal-size hat sitting atop Ellexa's normal-size head.

Oops, I seem to have answered my own question!

If anything, Joe's hat should appear larger as he seems to be closer to the camera. But no, it still has the appearance of an ice-cream cone balanced precariously atop an hirsute and grinning beachball. What an amazing illusion. My cousin, the Harvest Moon.

Well, the Berea Mets are done for the season.

In the league's single-elimination playoffs, we have been officially eliminated. It was a good game, though. Da Chimpz got some hits and the team played well.

After the game Dan and I stopped at Capri Pizza to kick back and decompress.

It was fun, but hectic -- I'm not sure I'll coach next year. In fact, I'm pretty sure I won't. But if Cookie and Mojo want to play I'll be there to help them and their team. They've both made a lot of progress in the last couple of months.

But for the rest of the summer, I can enjoy baseball the way it is meant to be enjoyed. On television. Or more often, not at all.

As for the rest of this evening, I'm going to spray myself with bug repellent and flop myself into the hammock out back. Now that's how to enjoy the off season.

Lemme tell you something: Philips makes some good shit. I got the Philips home theater system about the time I moved and I have been very satisfied. So earlier this year when I was on the market for a new TV I leaned toward Philips. We wound up getting a nice 32-inch LCD that has been quite good -- until last Monday when Cookie handed me the remote control and pointed to the blank screen, telling me he couldn't get it to work right.

I tried everything -- changed channels, heard sound, turned it on and off, but the screen would blank out in seconds and stay blanked out. It reminded me of when the backlight on the LCD of my ThinkPad 600e died a few years ago... not a fun recollection because it basically meant having to scrap that notebook computer.

None of the Philips FAQs covered the set's behavior; I called and verified my warranty coverage, got a reference number and the contact info for local servicers. I called one in nearby Brook Park and explained the situation. He asked when I could bring it in. I told him I'd be away for a few days so I'd have to get back to him in about a week.

"Will someone be home today?" he asked. The question surprised me -- but not as much as the fact that within the hour he showed up and took the TV away for its repair. And today he brought it back, fully functioning. No charge.

That kicks ass.

So, since I get so loud about bad consumer experiences I figured I'd write up this very good one: whatever you're buying, take a good look at the Philips model. Just don't pay for it with a Chase-issued credit card -- those fookers hit me with a $39 late fee and $11-something in finance charges for making last month's payment three days over. They can kiss my garlic ass -- I payed it in full and canceled the card. It'll be the last dime they squeeze from me. Made the same pronouncement on Citibank quite a few years ago following a similar fee levy.

Being that us Mastandreas really know how to hold a grudge, those banks should not expect to get my business back in my lifetime. Philips, though... that's a different story. Philips rocks.

And Jenia rocks. He's a frickin' yankee-doodle-dandy! Congratulations, my fellow American!

There's joy in Mudville tonight.

Well, at least in my little corner of Mudville: our lowly Berea Mets who struggled so mightily in the first half have ended their season not only with a three game winning streak, but with a stunning upset of what had been the league's top team. Everyone contributed -- even Cookie and Mojo who got on base, came around to score, and made some important plays in the field (including Cookie's inning-ending unassisted out at first base).

Last time we faced this team they were undefeated; we took the field knowing we had little chance of success. But we damn-near defeated them that night (and in some people's mind we had). Which made tonight's victory so special for the team. It was close, though. Made me glad I got Da Chimpz out this afternoon for some fielding practice -- if any one of their grounders had rolled under their mitts the outcome of the game would most certainly be different. Also made me glad I read the rulebook before gametime: in a scene vaguely reminiscent of Mets manager Gil Hodges' finding shoe-polish on the ball that hit Cleon Jones, our Berea Mets cited a rule that required the other team to break up its unorthodox placement of outfielders (they basically stood them in the infield). Had they stayed put, a few of our base-hits would have not gone though.

So the season ends with what I figure is now a tie for first place; our Amazin' Mets finish in fifth place (of seven). I'm happy for them. After all those tough losses, it's nice to get some big wins.

Tuesday starts the league's single-elimination playoffs. Would be so cool to stretch our winning streak to four. Or more. Stay tuned.

And here she is, the newest of the new cousins: Kayleigh.

What a week -- we just rolled back into Berea-Rose after a whirlwind tour of the old 'hood: Andre's family, Guido's family, friends of family and.. family! RoseAnne's place was the last stop as we veered our way toward the completion of our appointed rounds. Two-day-old Kayleigh was lounging about in her mommy's hospital room when we arrived, alternately snoozing and making squeaky-toy noises. We stepped out for a bit and when we got back she was getting herself a late lunch. We headed back to the house with Joe only to learn that Kayleigh's older brother wasn't feeling so well -- certainly not well enough to play with his wacky cousins Cookie and Mojo. Poor kid -- he took some Tylenol and kicked back on the sofa with his dad to watch the Yankees while we did our goodbyes and hit the road, unsure whether we'd make the whole drive in one night or have to stop over at a motel.

Well, we made it. And it's good we did: tomorrow evening is the last regular season game of our beloved Berea Mets. With all the post-holiday going-home traffic, we got a little anxious about what the drive would be like if we left it all for tomorrow. As coach, I wouldn't want to miss their last game (though some might want otherwise: I understand the team won big on Tuesday evening, a game I missed in order to start the week's fantastic journey).

And speaking of Mets, here's some of us standing outside the SNY studios visiting with the strange Statute-of-Liberty/Shea-Stadium... thing.

Ironically, we stopped to take this picture only a few short blocks from Rockefeller Plaza -- and as we walked through there I pointed out to the boys where the crowds of tourists would stand each morning, waving signs and hoping to touch the hem of Al Roker's cloak as he swept outdoors to mug for the cameras and patronize the howling mob.

"All I wanted to do was get to work," I explained to da chimpz. "And those people just stood there in my way."

Here is Mojo eating a black and white cookie at the source -- purchased from the Zaro's  at Grand Central and consumed on the spot.

Gosh, does he look happy.

We got some coffee beans at Oren's and the Post at Hudson News, then jumped aboard a train to spend the next few days in Westchester.

More details to follow, but not until we get back. (What can you make of a kid who eats the chocolate half of his cookie last?)

The Mastandrea gene is dominant. Believe it. He looks like Big Vin's baby picture. This is the little man trying to figure out what i am flashing in his face. He most definitely shares a gen with MR. Furious. He demands to be held. As i type this to my right Ellexa has her chair pulled up beside the computer desk and is feverishly coloring every post in the pad with my highliters. Christian or as the Waite's call him, C.J. is sittin in his chair on my left spinning a pinwheel and giggling, for now. And
yes i said a pinwheel. This is highly significant to the D.N.A. Those of you who have visited Spumoni South know it is peppered with pinwheels. My dad's weakness for flags and pinwheels is legendary.