Uncle Pat's Birthday

Sure do miss you, Uncle Pat.

It's been three years since you left us, and I've thought of you each of those 1,186 days.

I forgot to call Erin today, but I hope she knows I'm thinking about her. We all miss you, but I know it's probably harder on her than anyone else. Putting Willie to sleep last week was just like losing another piece of you. He was a great dog, and he sure was crazy about you, as were we all.

Rest in peace.

Baseball and music

My short-story submission to the Memphis Magazine fiction contest included several references to baseball and music, so I was recently digging around for songs about baseball.

Thanks to Matt for directing me to this video of former Memphian Todd Snider's hotel performance of "America's Favorite Pastime" for legendary producer Don Was.



I loved going to The Daily Planet in the early- to mid-90s to hear Snider play. Glad to hear he's doing well, and I look forward to hearing his latest CD, Peace Queer, due out in October.

Check out Snider's myspace page for another great song, "Mission Accomplished" ("fighting for peace, that's like screaming for quiet") or visit the Todd Snider official website.

But back to "America's Favorite Pastime." It's the story of Pittsburgh pitcher Dock Ellis' 1970 no-hitter against the Padres, apparently while he was under the influence of LSD. I'm embarrassed to admit I'd never heard this funny story before. I also enjoyed this tale from Wikipedia:

Ellis attempted "to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup on May 1, 1974. In an effort to prove a point to teammates, Ellis hit Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen in the top of the first. The clean-up batter Tony Perez avoided Ellis' attempts, instead drawing a walk, and after two pitches aimed at the head of Johnny Bench, Ellis was removed from the game by manager Danny Murtaugh. Ellis' box score for the game reads: 0 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K."

Is it still considered a wild pitch if you throw the ball exactly where you're aiming?

Chuck Brodsky is another great sports singer-songwriter, and I was lucky enough to hear him a few years back at That Bookstore in Blytheville, Arkansas. I fully intend to get my dad The Baseball Ballads for Christmas one of these years.

Here's a site dedicated to baseball music. (WARNING: Turn down your speakers before following the link!)

Baseball and music: two great tastes that taste great together.

Have you Googled your loved ones today?

I’m convinced that half the people who say they’ve never Googled their own names are lying, and the other half don’t know how to spell c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r, much less use one.

I confess, I Google myself occasionally--it just tickles a little. I’m not proud of it, but hey, at least I’m honest about it. I’m OK with (but not ecstatic about) what turns up, though I would like to reorganize things a little.

But tonight, for the first time ever, I Googled my husband’s name, and I found that he’s been keeping some pretty big secrets.

Kevin Eason is:

1. A former chief industrial correspondent for the Birmingham Post and Mail in the UK; Business F1 Magazine’s most powerful journalist operating in Formula One; and current Sports Business Correspondent and producer of The Insider gossip column for The Times of London. (For the record, I did know that he enjoys gossip.)

2. Server Administrator/Assistant to Director of Finance for the Mental Health Association in North Carolina, Inc.; he is tentatively scheduled to graduate from the University of Phoenix in 2011. (For the record, I did know that he’s mental.)

3. A darned good artist, apparently with a second address in New Jersey and possibly a third in Bikini Bottom. (For the record, I did know about the Tony Soprano obsession—perhaps I even caused it.)

4. A Brighton skateboard enthusiast and video camera owner-operator who knows how to upload to YouTube but has strange taste in music. (For the record, I did know about the strange taste in music.)

5. A sergeant in the Air Force. (For the record, I had no idea he likes to wear fatigues.)

6. Largely unknown to Google in his primary role as a wonderful husband, father and civil engineer from Memphis. (For the record, I did know that he's wonderful.)

Sunday links

It's not online, but the CA ran a story today about a recent book signing in Memphis. I clipped the article for its lesson on creative book marketing, which (fingers crossed) I might need one day.

The book: Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral.

How exactly do you market a book about funerals and cooking, especially if it was published three years ago? Well, for starters, you host it at a historic cemetery (Elmwood) and make it a fundraiser. Charlotte Hayes read passages from the tongue-in-cheek book, co-authored by Gayden Metcalfe, and the hosts served dishes prepared from the book's recipes. It was a sold-out event, and reading about it made me want to purchase the book, which is saying a lot, since I get all my recipes online. Plus, my standard food offering for funerals/deaths is a six-pack of Three Little Pigs barbecue.

Synopsis: "In this dishy collection of Southern humor and recipes, inveterate hostess and Southern belle Gayden Metcalfe explains everything one needs to know to throw a proper Southern funeral."

Here are links to a few funny, interesting and/or clever sites I've come across recently:

Children's Books You'll Never See from funny2.com. Sample title: "The Attention Deficit Disorder Association's Book of Wild Animals of North Amer - Hey! Let's Go Ride Our Bikes!"

Funny2.com also lists the World's Shortest Books, including "Zagat's Guides to Cities Without a Starbucks" and "Motherhood" by Britney Spears.

Animator vs. Animation: You'll want to watch it over and over again to catch everything.

This is an oldie but still one of my favorites. Following the Memphis-UAB basketball fracas a few months ago, Rumors & Rants posted this photo (a great one by CA photographer Mark Weber), turning it into a "search and find" game. Highlights:
-Middle finger count: 13
-Attractive female count: 2
-Angry white guy count: 60 (approx.)
-Three examples of Bama Bangs

Here's a quiz on TV theme songs. Most of these shows were pretty bad, so scoring well on this quiz is rather depressing. There are definitely other things I could use those brain cells for.

The good, the bad and the ugly: Sunday edition

The good—My diesel fuel story ran on the front page of the CA’s business section today.

The bad—I got a rejection this morning for an essay I wrote. Still, the editor encouraged me to send more material and gave me a specific address to email submissions. At least she bothered to send it two days after my submission, and on a Sunday, no less. So it’s not too bad.

The ugly—It’s always interesting to read the comments on commercialappeal.com in response to a story. People often enjoy attacking and arguing with one another on a wide variety of topics, many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the original story. Such is the case in the comments on my diesel article.

It's been a good week

Sunday night the kids went to my sister's, so my wonderful husband and I had a date. We went to hear a local band that features one of his high school classmates on drums. The drummer's girlfriend (flashback--I once started a story called "The Drummer's Wife") is also a freelancer for The Commercial Appeal, so we had a great conversation about our writing projects and frustrations. We've been corresponing by email all week, alternately venting and then patting one another on the back.

I am sooooo enjoying getting to know other writers. It's such a wonderful, helpful community.

Tuesday I submitted my short story to the Memphis Magazine Fiction Contest. Yay! For 10 years I've wanted to enter that contest, but this year I finally did it.

Thursday I turned in my diesel fuel article to the CA, and my editor wrote back to say it will probably be the Sunday business centerpiece. It was a complex story with lots of sources (many of which I wans't able to use in the article), but I think it turned out pretty well. I've got my next assignment already, and when school starts, I hope to have time to write one newspaper article per week.

Yesterday I decided to go on record with my writing goals for the month of August, and I confided to the other freelancers on the thread that I would like to go to a writer's conference in the near future. Someone made mention of an October conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which just so happens to be where my wonderful husband and I were married.

Boy, the wheels in my head started turning. That's Fall Break for my oldest daughter, and we already had plans to go camping that weekend with our extended family.

Could I possibly go to the conference instead of camping with my wonderful husband and two delightful daughters? Can we afford it? How much of a burden (financially and otherwise) would it be for my wonderful husband if I went? Who'll watch the kids on Thursday while my wonderful husband's at work and I'm driving through the beautiful Ozark Mountains? Could I borrow my mother-in-law's laptop and write during breaks, and late at night, and early in the morning, when I'm too giddy to sleep?

Stop! First things first. Talk to Kevin, my wonderful husband, and feel him out about it.

"There's a writing conference in Eureka Springs Fall Break weekend and..." that's all I got out of my mouth before he interrupted.

"I think you should go." Have I ever mentioned how wonderful my husband is?

Eureka! Eureka Springs, here I come!

I still have to work out the details, but...

I'M GOING TO A WRITER'S CONFERENCE IN OCTOBER IN BEAUTIFUL EUREKA SPRINGS!

And more importantly, I'm married to a wonderful man. :-)

My name is Lisa E, and I am a blogger

Uh-oh. My good AW buddy Round John Virgin found my blog, and apparently others can, too. So I guess I'm out of the blogging closet.

It's probably for the best, as now as my wonderful new writing friends can just visit here to find out what I'm up to--but only if they're interested--and they will no longer be subjected to my long-winded emails detailing my every thought.

Also, I posted on the AW freelance writing thread my goals for the month of August, and one of them is to update this blog twice a week. It's in writing, and there are people who will hold me to it.

One down, seven more to go.