I'm excited about the upcoming baseball and racing seasons. (To clarify, when I mention racing, it does not include NASCAR. I'm referring to F1, IRL and CART...or whatever may happen to poor ol' CART...stay tuned.) January is a good kick-start month for both. Major League Baseball & the Cooperstown Museum announce the new Hall of Fame class (two good choices this year, but many deserving were left to wait it out again), and there are a lot of free agent signings (none, sadly, to the advantage of my Pittsburgh Pirates) and roster maneuvers. (SIDE NOTE: All of these events are very exciting to baseball geeks. Trust me.) In racing, F1 finalizes its team drivers, and the new cars are launched. (Those in tune with Formula 1 will agree that these announcements are big deals. Again, trust the nerd.) As for IRL and CART, well, they're just trying to play nice right now...well, still trying to play nice after, what, eight or nine years! For those two American open-wheel series, the next few months will be interesting. Of course, for all of these sports, there are a lot of things going on right now, but those are the few that come to mind.

Now, when I mention that my two favorite sports are baseball and racing, the usual response is something like "Oh...my...god, how BORING! You love the two most BORING sports imaginable! What is wrong with you?" To this, I shrug and explain that they're beautiful sports with rich histories and that there are many reasons to love each. In fact, from this fan's point of view, baseball and racing have a lot in common when you really think about it. The enjoyment is much different than what is experienced during football, basketball, or hockey (the other "big" professional team sports in the US). Take a moment to read why they are similar, ESPECIALLY if you dislike baseball and have no idea why people like racing in ANY form.

Three Reasons Why Enjoying Racing is Like Enjoying Baseball:

1. Patience: You can't expect a home run or a no-hitter every game, but, when it does, it's worth the wait. At the racetrack, there's nothing like a slick pass, a lead change, a fast lap, a quick pit stop, non-injurious contact, etc. Racing and baseball aren't for fans who need constant "action" (as the nay-sayers opine the sports lack). I believe that this is why racing and soccer are hugely popular outside of the States (for example, Brazil or Japan or Italy). To those fans, the anticipation is just as exciting as the event.

2. Subtlety: The joy of baseball is the "little things": looking at uniforms and batting stances, watching the pitcher's ritual on the mound, hearing the sounds of the game, etc. Even better than all that is getting into the heads of the managers, hitters, pitchers and following the mental chess match. This subtlety is a big part of racing, too. For example, I love the beauty of the race cars (the "upside-down fighter plane" variety, not the "race on Sun, buy on Mon" kind), the genius of the engineering, the teamwork, the courage of the drivers, the noise, the smell of fuel and rubber, etc. With racing, the chess match is all there, too, but at 200 mph (as the cliche / marketing goes). For the owners, crew chiefs, and drivers, strategy is everything, but the strategy is subtle, unlike other sports that have constant, obvious "plays" (huddles and the quarterback signaling at scrimmage; point guard running the floor with the hand up). With baseball and racing, if you understand more about the "head game" (not a reference to Roger Kahn) the whole experience is so much more interesting.

3. Statistics: It's all about the numbers: speeds, times, lap counts...or ERA, OPS, RBI... Race fans crunch numbers just like baseball fans. Gears, horsepower, fuel loads, point systems, and many more... SLG, AVG, WHIP, OBA, RC...the calculating goes on and on... And, for both sports, the history is IN the numbers, but that's a whole other post.

I suppose one could think of more similarities, and, without a doubt, another could refute or dismiss all of the thoughts above. I'm not writing this to convert everyone into baseball or racing fans. Quite the contrary. You may read this and STILL think they both suck. Fine by me. The purpose of the argument is to open minds to why people out there--whether baseball fantasy leaguers or die-hard NASCAR fans--love what they love. I believe there's a lot more to everything if one is willing to dig a little deeper and take the time to understand.

I've always said in both my personal and professional lives that I don't care what you like or dislike, what you believe or don't believe...just explain to me WHY. Don't just tell me without explaining the "because". Show me that you have thought about it. Don't "like" or "accept" or "believe" just because your family or friend or preacher or boss thinks a certain way. Too many people walk this planet with opinions, prejudices, politics, beliefs locked in their brains, refusing to approach topics differently or to put their ideas on trial, in private or in public.

In the end, no matter what one likes or what one believes, there should always be a well-thought out "because" to the question "Why?"

Being a homeowner is getting better over time. I bought in April 2002, and I did it more for the investment than for the responsibility. Six years of renting and strategically saving and investing proved to be enough motivation to take the leap. I was at a stage in my life when, monetarily, it was very doable, even in the city of Chicago, and, psychologically, it felt right. The cash was there for the down payment and start-up costs, and the mortgage payments were affordable and even more so now that I refinanced three times in eighteen months. I wasn't reticent to own based on what it would cost in the short-term and long, but I was more concerned about how it would affect my lifestyle.

My job requires me to be on the road a lot, four to five days a week, every week; therefore, I was worried about my free time on the weekend being consumed by "condo" tasks, whatever those may have been pinging around in my imagination. Those who know my wife and me realize that neither of us is a homemaker, and astute prediction proved true if one thought that we STILL wouldn't have a bedroom after the first year (STILL don't at almost two years and counting...). If you stopped by our place, which still resembles the hodge-podge decor of a college dorm room, you'd think, "You weren't worried THAT much, man. There are still unpacked boxes resting against the downstairs wall!" All true, still very true.

Slowly, but surely, however, I learned to enjoy ownership. I enjoy the feeling of "our" place. I enjoy thinking about what we'll do next, or I suppose, in our case, what we MIGHT do SOME day. I even enjoy doing the little repairs and projects, much to my surprise (shock to many, surprise to me). Exciting moves for me were buying tools, learning how to use them, and, more importantly, not hurting myself or damaging the property in the process (in other words, trial and error and more error). But, still, I'm concerned about how much time--whether it's thinking or (gasp!) doing--the condo eats up during what little "me" time I have upon returning from my out of town assignments.

The condo, indeed, eats time. This weekend, for example, we finished some projects: set up a wine cabinet in an under-utilized pantry, installed an overhead light for the kitchen sink, and performed general disposal and clean-up leftover from the holidays. All of these activities, as predicted, precluded me from doing what I really want to do in my spare time, which is, basically, anything, but chores. My hobbies have become even more important over the last two years because a constant out of town schedule (most recently, California for the last sixteen months) does not allow me to indulge as I have in the past. Reading, in particular, is immensely important to me, and, without a doubt, it has taken a back seat to work and the condo.

Those who know me well confirm that books are as vital as air and water. I'm rarely out the door without a book in tow, and I try to take every idle moment as an opportunity to read. As a frequent traveller and a city-dweller, most of these opportunities arise in cabs, in airports, on planes, or on trains. I try not to juggle too many at once, but I've concluded that my on-off, stop-go, zig-zag lifestyle has eroded my attention span and requires me to maintain choices of literary escape. I can't pound threw a book a week like the days of yore, but, now, I must chisle away, bit by bit, at different pieces, choosing the one that could elicit the most pleasure or distraction at a given moment. Moreover, as a de facto rule, I must always have a choice between fiction and non-fiction because, I suppose, that different hemispheres of the brain are awake/napping at different intervals of my "turn it on-turn it off" lifestyle.

Currently, I am switching, as prescribed, between two novels and two works of non-fiction. I'm reading:

The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

and

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

Only The Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams by Robert Peterson

These titles are par for the course when one thinks about my interests over the last few years: Negro League baseball (and baseball, in general), crime fiction, comic books, and critical political history. Over time, I'll blog on about these books and offer up my relevant and/or tangential opinions and observations.

I'm wireless now. I set up a Linksys wireless G router at the condo. It's pretty cool to watch streaming video completely untethered at broadband speed. I went downstairs to test the connection from the farthest distances to the access point. It worked smashingly. I could do laundry and bid on eBay or shower and listen to music. I know...thrilling. However, considering that, three short weeks ago, I was still using dial up with only a work computer at home, I'm fairly excited about all of the new technology. In addition to the wireless router, we now have a cable modem, a personal notebook, a digital camera, and an iPod. (Yes, we catapulted into the 21st century, all at once, at Christmas.) I plan to add other hardware to the router (like a printer) and network my work notebook through it, too. My company is okay with people networking the firm notebooks through personal wireless networks, but we have to follow a bunch of guidelines, which is fine and understandable. They also won't supply hardware so I'll have to buy a wireless network card for the work machine. No biggie.

In addition to goofing around with wireless internet access, I've been playing a lot with my other fairly new toy, the Xbox. My wife (fiancee, at the time) surprised me with one for my last birthday. Because my job requires me to travel a lot, I took it from Chicago to San Francisco, where I had a corporate apartment. The Xbox was used a good amount in SF because it was a good way to relax after work and before going to bed, and there were too many things to do at home in Chicago to justify playing video games. Well, the Xbox is back in Chicago now because my SF-based project was cancelled abruptly by my client's board of directors. This wasn't a shocking turn of events under their current economic circumstances, but I had only four days to move out of an apartment where I resided for nearly one and half years. Some may think "big deal," but I had to do all that while working a full day and without any forewarning. I was stressed, and it was hectic; but, it all worked out in the end. A few boxes were shipped, but most of my stuff, including the Xbox, made the journey with me from SFO to ORD.

Back to the Xbox, I love it. I have about a dozen games now and don't have any favorites. I just grab whatever strikes me at the moment. Recently, I've been playing Halo, Enter the Matrix, and Soul Cailber II. I'm no good at any of them, but it's a lot of fun none-the-less. I even bought a couple of games that I thought my wife would like, Simpson's Road Rage and The Sims, hoping that she'd be interested in playing. Not the case. I thought maybe that she and I could play the way that my high school friends, my brother, and I used to play Contra and Blades of Steel on Nintendo after school. Again, not the case. Oh well, it's a great distraction, especially for a thirty-year old man who continues to tap into his adolescence. That and baseball cards fuel my post-teen engine, but I'll get into the baseball card infatuation at a later date.