Royals’ victory in last year’s Wild Card Game was inspiration for a children’s book

This is awesome. 

Royals’ victory in last year’s Wild Card Game was inspiration for a children’s book | The Kansas City Star

I've added it to my wish list.

What a night that was. 

Warm, fuzzy memories with the Berenstain Bears

I was saddened to see the news this morning that Berenstain Bears co-creator Jan Berenstain died.

And then, of course, I began getting nostalgic about all the good times I've had with that furry family who lived in the Bear Country and taught me valuable lessons about junk food, sharing, going to the dentist and Christmas, among other things.

The memories I have of collecting those books and having my parents or grandparents read them to me at night rank among my fondest childhood memories.

And now, one of favorite parts of being a father is seeing Phoebe delight in having Kates or I read those very same books to her before she goes to bed at night.

The books live on.

17 months and climbing

Phoebe turned 17 months old over the weekend.

Month 16 sure went fast, and for a time I wasn't sure there was a need to offer a monthly update ...

But there have been some interesting developments the last couple weeks ...

Phoebe has become a little daredevil.

I guess she’s always had a hint of that – what, with the way she romps recklessly on her rocking horse and says “Weee!” with that mischievous smile. God, I hope she doesn’t grow up to like biker dudes …

Over the weekend, Kates and I were having a conversation when all of sudden we stopped and caught Phoebe twirling in circles, looking to the sky and saying “Weee!” She twirled and twirled until she was so dizzy she flopped onto the floor … And after every fall, she got to her feet and tried it again. One time she made herself so dizzy she tripped and fell backward, knocking her head against a cabinet. Without missing a step – to our laughter – she got up and started twirling again.

Recently, she’s learned to climb furniture. And she loves to jump on it, too. Like a trampoline. And she loves falling into the pillows. With laughter … Once in awhile, Kates and I have allowed her to jump around on our bed for fun, as long as we’re present and keeping a close eye on her. But now, having the experience of looking in from another room and suddenly seeing her jumping on the couch has us rethinking that game …

It also has us discussing toddler tumbling classes for her.

The worst is her fascination with our living room rocking chair. It’s a rickety old thing that Kates picked up at a resale store for her first apartment, but it’s a good-looking piece that sits in a “reading corner” of our living room, between the TV cabinet and a coffee table. Phoebe has figured out how to pull herself on to it, using her right arm on the TV cabinet and her left arm on the chair’s arm. Then she swings her legs around and pulls herself upright on the chair, and the jumping commences.

And that leads us to the tantrums, which, as toddlers go, have become more, um, entertaining … If she wants to jump on the couch and needs help getting on it, she’ll scurry to us and say “Up, pees.” If Kates or I decide it’s not a good idea to allow her up, we’ll politely tell her no. The “Up, pees” requests become more intense and heartfelt, we don’t give in, and Phoebe stomps away with an avalanche of screams and groans, before collapsing into her beloved blanket.

Or there’s the complete meltdown, like we had the other night when it was time for Phoebe to go to bed and we took away the keys she was playing with … As I’ve mentioned before, Phoebe is fascinated with our keys. So Kates and I were sitting with her at the back door as she played with a set of keys and worked at inserting one of the keys into the keyhole. (She’s just like her daddy and her grandpa in that sense. When she wants something, or has to figure out how to make something work, her focus is on that – eyebrows furled, mouth agape – and nothing else until she gets it right …) She did get it a few times, and Kates and I applauded her for it. But after about 20 minutes of watching her, we decided it was time to start preparing for bed. I gently took the keys from her, we told her it was time for bed, and the meltdown began …

Loud screams, stomping feet, huge tears, she crumbles onto the floor. Often, she gets herself so worked up, she’s bordering on hyperventilation and it takes what can seem like an eternity to calm her … She sure does have a set of lungs on her, though – which I suppose bodes well for any singing aspirations.

Aside from the tantrums – although that is all part of the fun – our nights with Phoebe, after a hard day’s work, have rarely seemed dull or vexing.

More and more lately, Kates and I have taken to nightly walks around our neighborhood with Phoebe, and a stop at the park down the block. Phoebe’s at an age now where she can find the fun in running all over the park and climbing – again, the climbing – on the play equipment. And it’s oh so delightful to watch … Over the weekend, we took her to the park and finally got her over her fear of slides. (Any previous attempt to put her on a slide resulted in kicking and screaming) … When I took her back to the park last night, I couldn’t keep her away from the slide.

Her interest in books keeps growing, too. Before we put her to bed, she never fails to pull a handful of books from her shelf and set them on our laps to be read. … Any Sandra Boynton book, “Skippy John Jones” and “Good Night Moon” are guaranteed to get a look every night.

On TV, “Sesame Street” is her absolute favorite … She points out and shouts “Elmo!” or “Ernie” every time they appear in the screen, and she watches intently as ever whenever we put the show on … Our only problem now is finding a way to keep her from standing to close to the TV while she watches it.

Guess the last month has been eventful, after all.

Sunday reading

... Talk about a crazy week ...

... On the heels of my dream week of baseball last week, last Saturday started a string of eight straight days of rain. Not a sprinkle -- long, hard, pouring rain. Luckily Kates and I escaped with only a trickl of water in our basement ... The rest of our area wasn't so lucky, and much of the land to the west of us remained flooded with numerous roads closed and the rivers at record heights ...

... All of that made for a somewhat chaotic and sometimes tense work week ... To ease the tension a littke bit, one of my cohorts delivered this radio snippet ... I'd already heard it a few times before, but it'll have you laughing every time!

Here's some of the headlines and stories that caught my eye during the last week ...

Baseball ...
a Froemming has called 'em like he's seen 'em
a Bouton gives fans a real 'old-timer's day'
a Bonds' uncharted universe: 755 and beyond
a Home run record may bring Bonds neither respect nor adulation
a Angels' Anderson bombs Yankees with 10 RBI
a Gloveless hitters buck the trend
a Happy returns: Cleveland Indians acquire well-traveled Lofton in trade with Texas Rangers ... apparently this happened a month ago, but I just caught it this week. Poor Kenny ... though if he's anywhere, it's good to see him in Cleveland.
a A half-century ago, a baseball era ended in New York and another started in California

Internet & Media ...
a In Month Before Labor Day, Pointless 'Filler' Columns Abound ... so HA-larious. So true.
a Playboy courts college students with online site ... now this is a new one ...
a It came from outer space

Politics ...
a Bill Clinton in '08!
a It's all about priorities for Michelle Obama
a Obama: Presidential Bid at Times Insane ... Kates and I caught this Daily Show. Awesome.
a Huckabee: a Republican who can lead us back home

Entertainment ...
a Her book is Hollywood, according to Courtney
a MTV’s ‘Sweet 16’ show drives fad for lavish birthday parties ... this is just insane ...
a La-La Land lets Lindsay Lohan off easy ... this is insane too ...
a Put the Kids in Bed and Close the Door, the Real Bob Saget Is in the House

Music ...
a This Furniture Rocks
a Music-Selling Rivals Take Aim at iTunes

Other stuff ...
a Cellphone Contracts: Hard to Get off the Hook
a One in Four Read No Books Last Year
a Certified Guaranty Co. puts comics on a slab

Harry Potter arrives

... So Kates got her copy of the seventh and final Harry Potter book tonight ...

... In what's sort of become a tradition of mine, I ordered it a couple weeks ago as a late birthday present for her. And as tough as it was, I never led on or gave her any hints that it was on its way ... She had no idea.

And all the while, as she's done leading up to every new Harry Potter book, she shrugs when someone asks her if she's excited for the new book. She says she doesn't care that much about it, and figures she'll get around to reading it sooner or later ...

But I know better.

So every year I surprise her with the newest book and then she has a completely different attitude ...

Tonight was no different. We'd just arrived home after our weekend on the road, and I immediately checked the mailbox, knowing it would be there. Amazon had even dressed it up in a Harry Potter-themed box -- something Kates didn't even see as I sang and danced and handed it to her in a mini-ceremony ...

When she realized she was the proud owner of the new, final Harry Potter book, her mouth and eyes got wide as the ocean, she held the book tight to her chest and thanked me repeatedly. Like a kid in a candy store. Minutes later, after we'd finished unpacking, she was settling in the chair, and delicately turning the first pages like they were crystal; she looked over the chapter titles and got set to begin the latest journey ...

Now I haven't read any of the books -- maybe I will someday -- but knowing how much Kates enjoys the books (We do own all the movies on DVD, which I have watched with her and enjoyed ...), it's been easy for me to get caught up in all the hype surrounding this last book...

Even I got excited just reading this review in the Baltimore Sun: An inevitable ending to Harry Potter series ...

More stories
a Harry Potter and the Resurgence of Story Telling
a The secret of Harry Potter’s appeal
a Who’s who in the world of Harry Potter
a Under the Spell of Harry Potter
a All Things 'Harry Potter'

About the book
a The story so far — Harry Potter 1 through 6
a Questions remain to be answered in final Harry Potter book
a Spoilers could be the least of some Potter fans’ worries
a The Complications of Killing Off Fictional Characters
a The Wizardly Editor Who Caught the Golden Snitch
a Catching up with ’Harry Potter’ audio-book narrator Jim Dale
a Harry Potter and the Diminished Returns
a A Young Wiz Nurtured by Literary Forebears
a Potter Mania Knows No Age Limit
a Would-be Harry Potter spoilers spread on the Internet
a The Harry Potter Phenomenon: Not Quite a Miracle

About the film
a Latest Potter Film Is Thick and Heavy
a Harry Potter film features the same old magic
a Harry Potter and his army of witches discuss the making of their latest Hogwarts adventure

Harry Potter links
a harrypotter.warnerbros.com
a http://www.jkrowling.com/
a mugglenet.com
a http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/
a www.fuuko.com/hpquiz.html

Remembering the Fitz

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald ...

A few months ago, I got an assignment to read a new book by author Michael Shumacher, titled 'Mighty Fitz.' At the time, I knew nothing about the Edmund Fitzgerald. I'd barely heard of it. Sure, I'd heard the Gordon Lightfoot song, but up until a few months ago, it was just another song I heard on the radio, never really paying attention to the story the lyrics told ...

All that changed after reading 'Mighty Fitz,' a shipwreck and mystery I have since become fascinated with.

The story I wrote and had published a few weeks ago follows ... and make sure you check out the end of this post, where I've placed some very cool links...

* * *
The world may never know what caused the Edmund Fitzgerald’s defeat against a November gale and its sudden plunge to the depths of Lake Superior, but Michael Schumacher’s newest book will certainly shed some new light on the mystery often called "the Titanic of the Great Lakes."

As next month marks the 30th anniversary of the legendary shipwreck and the deaths of all 29 crewman on board, Schumacher has completed his latest book, "Mighty Fitz," which examines the Fitzgerald’s productive life on the Great Lakes and her untimely demise.

"Nobody survived this thing to tell the story," Schumacher said in an interview with the Kenosha News. "Here it’s a big mystery and I think that really, really captivates people."
A 729-foot long ore carrier, the Edmund Fitzgerald left the Burlington-Northern Railroad dock in Superior on Nov. 9, 1975, with more than 26,000 tons of taconite pellets. The massive ship, which was owned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, was known as one of the hardest-working vessels on the lakes.

But shortly after the Fitzgerald headed out for its routine run to Detroit, the last of the 1975 shipping season, it met a pounding storm. Losing ground, the ship’s radar cut out and she began taking on water amid mountainous, 16-foot waves.

With another huge freighter, Arthur M. Anderson, trailing it, the Fitzgerald changed course and kept communication with Anderson as they sought safe harbor at Whitefish Point, Mich. During the Fitzgerald’s last communication about 7:10 p.m. on Nov. 10, Capt. Ernest M. McSorley gave no indication his ship was in peril, telling the Anderson crew, "We are holding our own."

No distress signal was ever put out and 10 minutes later, Anderson could detect no signs of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

In "Mighty Fitz," Schumacher relays in vivid detail the story of the Fitzgerald, its 17 record-breaking years on the Great Lakes, its tragic demise, the search effort and investigation, and the speculation and controversy in the aftermath of the disaster.

A St. Joseph High School graduate, Schumacher is the author of six books including acclaimed biographies about music legend Eric Clapton, poet Allen Ginsberg and folk singer/activist Phil Ochs.

But writing about the Fitz hit closer to home for Shumacher, living on the shore of Lake Michigan and having a lifelong fascination with the Great Lakes. Among 25 documentaries he’s written, three have dealt with the mysterious shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Schumacher also was a fan of Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian folk singer who wrote and recorded "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The song reached No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts in November 1976 and earned a Grammy nomination for song of the year.

Schumacher dedicated "Mighty Fitz" to the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald and to Lightfoot "for giving us a song to remember them by."

"That’s what caught everybody’s attention," Schumacher said. "The Fitz was the largest to sink but there were shipwrecks with more loss of life, more times over. The Lightfoot song really made people aware of this shipwreck."

By writing "Mighty Fitz," Schumacher set out to not only keep the topic alive, but provide a more complete account of the events surrounding the Fitzgerald than any other author has done.

He succeeds in his approach by detailing all angles of the story in gripping and dramatic proportions, starting with a Nov. 8, 1975, weather report that warned of two low-pressure systems colliding to form a storm over the central states and upper Great Lakes.

"History dictated the forecast in the vernacular, if the two systems met, all hell was going to break loose," Schumacher wrote.

The book’s initial chapters continue with accounts of the ship’s Nov. 9 loading process and the launch of the fateful voyage, woven in between personality sketches of the crewman living on the Fitz and the tragic details of other ships that succumbed to the fury of the Great Lakes.

The drama only increases as Schumacher pieces together the final hours of the Fitzgerald in blizzard-like conditions.

Sailing against heavy seas and wind gusts of 100 mph, the ship had suffered some damage. It was leaning on one side and its radars were inoperable.

Still, in conversations with the Anderson and other nearby ships, McSorley gave little indication the Fitz was in danger.

"Part of this stoicism was pure McSorley and part was longstanding tradition," Shumacher wrote in the book. "From long experience, McSorley was rightfully confident in his ability to master a ship through a storm, and though he had been cautious enough to admit the damage to his ship to the Anderson and ask for its help, it was not in his nature to cave under pressure. He would bring in his ship, even if he faced hell and high water."

But somehow the ship did go down -- fast and likely without warning.

The second half of Schumacher’s book begins with the search for the Fitzgerald wreckage and the eventual discovery of the ship split apart with its stern lying upside down in 530 feet of water.

The book also tackles the hearings, testimony and controversy that followed the Fitzgerald tragedy, from the court battles over divers being allowed to visit the wreckage to the disagreements over how the Fitzgerald sank. In their investigations and official reports, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Lake Carriers Association all differed on the reasons for the Fitzgerald’s sinking.

The writing process was the most intense of any of his books, Schumacher said. He had to endure a few dicey interviews with the family members of lost crewman and witnesses who had either been burned by the press or were exhausted of talking about the 30-year-old mystery. Schumacher also sat down for rare interviews with two of the three surviving members of the Marine Board of Investigation.

Schumacher did an extraordinary amount of his own research, spending hours in libraries and buying any Fitzgerald or Great Lakes book he could find. He also spent the beginning of the year at the Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., sifting through the agency’s huge vault of reports and transcripts.

"I stood at the photo copy machine there for a couple days and just copied these documents," Schumacher said with a chuckle. "… It was to the point where it was the only thing I was thinking about. I was dreaming about the Fitz, literally dreaming."

So it’s not surprising that Schumacher has his own theories about how the ship sank. He believes the Fitzgerald’s sinking was a combination of the ship hitting ground somewhere, thus cracking its hull, and taking in a catastrophic amount of water on its deck, forcing one or more of the ship’s hatch covers to cave.

Shumacher does not believe, as others have cited, the Fitzgerald broke apart on the surface of Lake Superior.

Although, no theory has been disproved, which is why the Fitzgerald shipwreck has captured so many imaginations.

"Nobody knows why it went down," Schumacher said. "It’s going to be one that really catches your attention and it’s the most modern of the big ore carriers to go down. There’s no reason it should have sunk."

More on the Fitz:
a 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'
a Minnesota remembers the Edmund Fitzgerald (From the St. Cloud, Minn., Times, which also includes a cool interactive feature)